


Vigilance VI: Reprieve

by nightinngales



Series: Vigilance [6]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Mod References, Modded Skyrim, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23315644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinngales/pseuds/nightinngales
Summary: Eres returns to Fellburg to recover from her ordeal in Coldharbour. There is a lot to unpack. She's walked into hell and survived it. Somehow, that seems easier than trying to figure out just where she and Serana stand - and how to move forward from here. But how long can Eres afford to turn a blind eye to the world around her? Eventually, all things come to a head.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana
Series: Vigilance [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585780
Comments: 33
Kudos: 145





	1. Torpor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This act is blessedly lighthearted compared to previous ones. They're both dumb and gay and hopeless. Enjoy.
> 
> Edited 3/28: Fixed a couple minor errors and formatting.

Eres sleeps for many days and nights. 

Sometimes, it is restful. For the first few days, it had been so. Then, she wakes in fits and starts; first only when Auria wakes her to eat, then on her own as she lurches out of unpleasant dreams. She is not quite feverish, at least not in the sense that she runs a temperature, but nor is she quite conscious. When she does wake for precious few minutes at a time, her eyes remain glazed and unfocused, wild and unseeing, and she mumbles nonsense—jumbled phrases and sounds that are not quite words, but close—when she is awake enough to speak at all. 

Those are the hardest days. The days when Serana knows that Eres is suffering, somewhere in the dreams that haunt her, and she can do little to help her. 

The handmaiden-turned-healer, Auria, is a godsend. Trained in the unusual, but effective, Bosmeri brand of magic, she is able to soothe when Serana cannot. She brings Eres into her arms in the worst of her fits and soothes her with soft words and softer touches. A caress against her cheek, a threading of gentle fingers through her hair, a gentle rocking as she cradles Eres in her arms like a young child, a wistful lullaby upon her lips, sung in a language Serana does not know. 

It’s in one of those moments, on the ninth day, that she sees it as Auria takes the fitting Eres into her arms. As she shushes her and soothes her, as has quickly become routine. 

Serana looks at them. She looks at Auria as the woman bows her head close to Eres’ own to whisper to her, soft enough that even Serana can just barely hear her , and she _sees_ it. It clicks into place so suddenly that she wonders how she hadn’t noticed it before. How could she not have seen it? 

“Oh,” she says, dumbly. Then, a beat later: _“Oh.”_

Auria looks up at her. She sees the look upon Serana’s face, the way Serana looks between them, and she gives Serana a thin smile. Silently, she presses a finger to her lips. 

Serana just stares at her, dumbfounded. 

_How_ had she not seen it before? It was no wonder she’d thought the woman looked familiar when she’d first seen her. But she’d been so distracted with Eres that she’d never paid much attention to it, had never actually stepped back and looked at both of them at the same time. She’d had eyes only for Eres. 

Auria isn’t just some random handmaiden. 

Auria is _Eres’ mother._

Eres sleeps more easily when Auria sings to her. Even with so many questions rattling around in her mind, Serana does not interrupt her - if only for Eres’ sake. 

But when Auria is finished, and Eres is again sound asleep beneath the duvet, Serana catches Auria’s gaze and tilts her head towards the adjoining door, to the unused servant’s quarters attached to Eres’ bedchamber that, at least for the time being, had been converted to a personal bathroom for Eres to be bathed in without having to haul her downstairs to the basement. 

Auria meets her eye, and nods. Her pleasantly polite, practiced expression falls by the wayside as she follows Serana into the next room. Once the door has closed behind them, Auria’s face has become as steel: unreadable, immovable, impassive. The woman clasps her hands in front of her dress and waits. 

Serana finds that she struggles to even find the words to say to her. For a moment, she paces, hands braced on her hips, brow furrowed, as her thoughts bounce around inside her skull, each fighting to reach the surface. After a minute, Serana stops, faces her. Stares at her. 

Serana looks at this woman’s face, and she still doesn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before. How hadn’t _anyone_ seen it before? Auria’s likeness to Eres is remarkable: they have the same eyes, the same button nose, the same full lips. Auria’s cheekbones are a bit higher, her chin just a touch squarer—but Serana can look at this woman and see so much of Eres within her. Or, perhaps more accurately, she can look at _Eres_ and see so much of _Auria_ within her. 

“You’re not just a servant.”

Auria tilts her head a bit. Raises her chin. It’s so very much like when Eres feels she’s being challenged, when she lets her pride show in just the slightest amount. It’s so _very like her_. It’s almost unsettling, considering that, as far as Serana knows, Eres’ mother had disappeared when she was just a child, too young to even remember her. 

And now here she is. Looking like Eres. Acting like her, even, if a bit more regal about it all. How much of Eres is just Auria, distilled and diluted?

“I am not,” Auria answers plainly. 

“You’re a mage,” Serana says. 

“Something like that.” 

Serana nods. She had known that. She doesn’t necessarily like the vague answer, but these aren’t even the questions she actually wants to ask. Somehow, they had just spilled out of her mouth first. 

“You’re Eres’ mother.” She does not phrase it as a question. 

Auria’s lips press together. “Yes.” Well. At least she’s forthcoming. At least she’s not bothering to lie to her face. Serana might have been insulted if she had. 

Serana nods again. Then a second time. She stops when she realizes she’s not actually sure why she’s nodding. 

“I should have seen this a long time ago. I don’t know how I didn’t see it—you look just like her.” 

Auria averts her eyes, for just a moment. When she looks back, she looks almost a bit apologetic. Almost. “A simple glamor,” she replies. “It doesn’t change my appearance, but it does make it so though people… overlook it.” 

Serana raises a brow. “Useful.” She might have to ask about that one sometime. When she’s done interrogating her, maybe. When Auria isn’t using it to deceive everyone around her. Including Eres, probably. Not that Eres would even know, but it’s the principle of it that matters.

“Why are you here?” 

Auria sends her a dubious look. “Why would I not be here?” 

Serana stares at her. She very nearly laughs in the woman’s face. But she is at least going to attempt to be nice. This one time. Unless Auria gives her a _wrong_ answer, that is. 

“Gee, I don’t know. You tell me,” Serana says, not nearly as politely as she had wanted to but much less vicious than she might have been without tempering herself. A happy medium. Sort of. “According to Eres, you haven’t been here since she was, what? Three?” 

Auria’s jaw tightens. Her eyes flash with something like anger. Offense. “ _Four_ ,” she corrects tightly. “And that was not by choice.” 

“Oh,” Serana shakes her head. “Do tell. I’m sure this is a _great_ story.” 

“It is none of your business.” Auria’s eyes narrow, hardening. “I will explain myself to Eres when she wakes. She is the only one to whom I owe an explanation.” 

“I disagree. I’ve seen Eres wonder about you. I saw the look on her face when Mirabelle mentioned you to her, the first time. She’s probably always wondered what happened to you, and she never had an answer. I’m not sure that anything you say would be good enough to explain that. And if your ‘explanation’ just ends up hurting her—I’m not going to be happy about it. So I highly advise that you tell me first. I know her better than you do.” 

Auria inhales a controlled breath. “I see that you are protective of her. I cannot fault you for that.” Serana waits. “I will tell you this: know that, had I any other choice, I would never have left her behind. I meant to bring her with me.” 

“And you decided twenty years later was when you could make up for it? You didn’t reach out to her even _once_?” 

“I did, actually.” Auria’s expression darkens. “I am certain her father kept her from seeing my letters.” 

“Why couldn’t you come see her?” 

“Because my return would have meant her death.” Auria tells her, voice carefully even. “Until recently.”

“Her death by _whom_?” 

“That, I cannot say.” 

Serana scowls at her. “And I’m supposed to believe you?” 

Auria shrugs. “It matters not to me what you choose to believe. I am not here for you. It makes no difference to me. I will remain here all the same, whether you approve of me or not.” 

“It’s not my approval you need to worry about.” Serana mutters. “Do you think Eres is just going to welcome you back with open arms? After all this time?” 

Auria tilts her head, looking at her searchingly. “Is it Eres you are advocating for, or yourself?” 

Serana blinks. “What?” 

“This seems a deeply personal matter for you. Perhaps one that is not entirely related to myself and Eres, but… your own mother, I assume?” 

“Nice try.” 

“I am not ‘trying’ anything. I have a particular sense for these things. You should tell your mother how you feel. You cannot clear the air if you refuse to bring everything in the open. Does she know you harbor such resentment for her?” 

“This isn’t about me.” Serana hates this. Hates this woman, a little bit. How the fuck did she manage to turn this around on her? She’s not _that_ obvious, is she? Gods. What a mess. 

“This is about Eres. She’s already dealing with enough right now.” 

“I am well aware.” 

“She doesn’t need her mother suddenly popping in and dropping more problems in her lap.” 

“I will not leave her again.” Auria’s brows come together sharply. “No matter what you say.” 

“That’s not—” Serana pauses. Thinks. Curses internally. “I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore. But don’t just—just drop this in her lap unexpectedly. I don’t _like_ you being here under false pretenses, but if it helps her recover…” 

“Why do you think I have taken this position? For my own entertainment?” Auria gestures at the room around them as if to make a point. “I will remain at her side as her handmaiden until she is well. When that day comes, then I will reveal myself to her.”

Serana crosses her arms. For some reason, she feels like she got swindled somehow. She’d come in here with a plan. Well, sort of a plan. More like the skeleton of a plan, but she had one. Then Auria had turned the tables on her, and now she can’t help but feel like Auria had just steered the conversation back into her favor - by ending on the same note they had started with. 

“Eres isn’t going to like this,” is all Serana can manage, in that moment. She shakes her head again, thinking of how terribly this might go over when Eres learns the truth. 

“We all must confront the things we dislike,” Auria says sagely. “It builds character.” 

At that, Serana rolls her eyes. “Don’t you start mothering _me_ now.”

When Eres wakes, it is to the feeling of someone jostling her body, lifting her from beneath warmth. She is only distantly aware of the distressed sound that escapes her, unhappy to feel cool air against fevered skin. 

She’s _cold_. That is one of the very first things she becomes aware of. She is _cold_ , and someone is taking her from the warmth, and she wants to go back. She wants to burrow beneath the covers and stay there for a while longer. But this person lifts her, settles her against— against more warmth, but a different warmth. Eres hears speech. Or what might have been speech, she assumes. It sounds like she’s hearing it from a great distance rather than right above her, sounds like she’s buried her head in the sand while someone is trying to speak with her, like she has two pillows crammed against her ears, muffling the sound. 

One of her hands reaches up, slaps against one of her ears, clumsily. It hurts. It feels like her hand doesn’t belong to her. Another hand grabs her wrist, holds it close to her body so she doesn’t move it again. She protests, a bit, but even _she_ can’t understand what it is that she says. Her mind and her mouth don’t seem to be connected. As foggy as her thoughts feel, the distance between her brain and her mouth feels even foggier, even more mysterious. 

She tries again. There is warmth against her lips. A bit too hot. A bit creamy. She turns away from it, irritated. She doesn’t even like soup. She doesn’t want soup.

The warmth she leans against shifts, deflating suddenly. A sigh. Exasperation? Frustration? It is a person, Eres thinks. Maybe they’re annoyed with her. 

Serana? 

She tries to ask. She finds that she can’t, and so she tries to open her eyes, next. 

Her eyelids flutter open, she sees a blur of images and colors and brightness and then her eyes just—roll back against her will, fluttering back beneath her eyelids. She tries to right them again, and again, and each time, it is like even her eyes refuse to listen to her mind’s direction. She can’t manage to make them open, make them focus and stay in one place, and after several attempts, Eres groans, feeling ill and dizzy and a bit lightheaded and wanting very much just to lay back down again. 

“Come, child,” the voice says. “You must eat.” 

Eres frowns. That doesn’t sound like Serana. She knows that isn’t Serana, because Serana isn’t ever _warm_ , really. Unless she’d taken up sun-bathing while Eres was asleep, which Eres doubts considering how much the woman complains about how bright the daytime is. But. Even though it isn’t _Serana_ , it sounds—this voice sounds familiar. She’s certain she’s heard it before, somewhere. But, different, in a way. There was something _off_ about that voice. Something that didn’t quite add up, that Eres doesn’t _quite_ recognize. It’s familiar, but it’s _close_ to something Eres knows, and she can’t quite pinpoint why it doesn’t sound quite right. 

“Nn..soo.” That’s. That’s not even Alessian. Why the fuck isn’t her mouth working? Was she _drugged_? 

Anger fills her, swift and furious as it rises in her veins, and even _that_ feels sluggish, much slower than she’s used to. It feels like everything around her moves as though through molasses, through a thick syrup, through _tar._ Everything is so much _slower_ than it should be. She’s been drugged. She has to have been drugged. Where the hell was she? _Who is touching her_? 

“Shh,” says the voice. “You will never regain your strength this way. Stubborn girl,” the woman tuts. 

It is a woman, Eres knows that much. That much, she can tell. It’s a woman that’s holding her, that’s talking to her this way. It’s a woman whose voice sounds oddly familiar. Where does she _know it_ from? 

The spoon is pressed to her lips again. Eres jerks her head away, then her whole body. She struggles, trying to lift herself out of this stranger’s arnms, and finds that she doesn’t have the strength. She can barely even manage to roll herself over, not with the woman trying to set her back in place again, and this woman is so much stronger than she is and she just wants to be let _go_. Leave her _alone_. 

She calls for Serana. 

She tries to, at least. She’s not even going to pretend it actually sounded like Serana’s name, but at least she tried. She knows it sounded nothing like her name, but if anyone could understand her, understand it at all, it would be her. Serana would know. Serana would help her. Serana would—Serana is _there,_ isn’t she? 

Eres stills. She stops fighting for a moment, face half-pressed into the covers, trying to convince her eyes to open and focus properly. She starts with them barely slit, and tries only to make them hold position right in front of her without rolling back again before she opens them even a fraction wider. It feels like something is burning right behind her eyes, like the very muscles there are too exhausted to function properly. Is it even possible to, to forget how to use your eyes? What kind of drug could do this to her? Who the hell would give it to her? Why were they allowed?

More importantly, _where is she?_

If Serana’s not here, then—Eres is so sure. She’s so sure she’d seen Isran there. And Inigo. She thought… She’d thought it hadn’t been in her head, but what if it _had_? What if she’d made the whole thing up in her head somehow and she’s still in Coldharbour and she never fought Molag Bal and she never got him to leave her alone but she’s just _there_ and having hallucinations and she never sees any of them ever again? What if she’s just lost her entire mind and doesn’t know it yet? What if—

“What the hell, Auria.” _Serana._

Eres almost laughs into the bed sheet, but it’s too much effort. She’s too tired to laugh. But she’s happy. She’s happy that it’s Serana. She’s happy that—that she can hear that voice again, even if it’s all just in her imagination. Even if it’s all a ruse. Even if it’s all a hallucination, at least she can have a happy one, right? If she’s stuck in Coldharbour still but she gets to pretend like she isn’t and

Serana is there then maybe it won’t be all bad. Maybe… 

“Stop staring and _help_ ,” says the mystery woman.

“She’s fighting me.” 

“Shouldn’t that be considered—” Serana’s voice pauses. The bed dips. Eres feels hands at her waist, wrapping around her middle. These hands are familiar.

She knows these hands. She doesn’t fight them, even when they lift her off the mattress and make her sit up again. “A good thing?” Serana finishes. 

“Hold her arms down.” 

There’s still arms around her waist. Is she sitting in Serana’s lap? If she could just _see—_

Her eyes burn, and she groans, tilting her head back. 

“I’m not going to _restrain her.”_

_“_ She’s going to hurt herself,” the familiar voice says, and Eres feels those hands slap her own down, away from reaching for her own face. Eres scowls. She’s just trying to _rub her eyes_ for fuck’s sake leave her alone. “Stop.” The command actually does make her pause, for a second, with that authoritative, no-nonsense tone. 

She knows that tone. That sternness in her voice—it had been too soft before. That’s why she didn’t recognize it. It’s—

 _“Mara?”_ Eres actually manages to get a whole word out, and it sounds exactly as expected. 

There’s a pause. The hands holding down her wrists loosen, gentling. 

“No more draughts.” Serana says, voice firm. Her voice is very close to Eres’ ear. She leans back toward it, just behind her. Ah. Serana is there. She’s very soft. Eres is comfortable. 

Serana clears her throat, and Eres can feel her stiffen a bit, but Eres is at least not going to fight anymore. She’s… Well, she’s still not sure if any of this is real, but if it is, surely her near-total lack of awareness can be used as an excuse to—to what? Enjoy it? Savor it? The more logical part of her brain wakens, second guessing herself:

what if Serana doesn’t want her to? What if—

But Serana does relax behind her, after a moment. She seems fine with it. Surely if she minded, she’d have pushed Eres away. Fine. That’s fine. Eres settles. She reaches up to rub at her eyes again, and this time the woman who sounds like Mara doesn’t stop her. 

“The draughts have been helping her to sleep without the nightmares…” Says the Mara-like voice. It’s quite strange to hear her without that echo-like sound to it. Weird. She must—it can’t be _Mara_ , right? Maybe she _is_ still asleep. But at least it’s a nice dream. 

A confusing one, maybe. But a nice one all the same. Would Serana ever hold her like this in the real world? Strangely, Eres finds it hard to imagine. Serana just doesn’t seem like a person who engages in a lot of physical affection… Then again. They’d hugged before. Maybe she is. She did say that some vampires used to have bedwarmers back at the castle. Maybe vampires like cuddling. She’ll have to ask one day. Maybe not in _those_ words, but somehow. She’ll figure something out. That would be cute. Vampires like warmth. Eres is warm. That works out, right? 

“They’re also confusing her. She’s totally out of it.” Eres tries to open her eyes again. The lights are so bright she has to squint, and even then, she only sees a very vague blur of a woman in a reddish dress. A bed. She’s in a bed. There are covers in her lap, tangled around her legs. 

Huh. 

Serana’s not wearing her leather bracers. Just the soft, muted red of the long-sleeved tunic she wears beneath her armor. Weird, it feels like the first time Eres has even seen her dressed down in the slightest. She wants to turn around, see if Serana is still wearing the cloak and the choker and the corset, but turning around just seems like it would take way too much energy, and she has so little of it to spare. 

So Eres just sinks back, and tries to let her eyes adjust to the light. It’s so _bright._

The woman-shaped blob that sounds like Mara reaches forward with a hand—and a spoon. Eres pushes herself back into Serana just as Serana lifts a hand to stop her. “If there’s draught in that, she’s not going to eat it.” 

The woman lets out an exasperated sigh. She sets the bowl down on the dresser beside the bed with a clatter of porcelain against porcelain. “I am only trying to help. _Must_ you be so disagreeable?” 

“ _Me?_ ” Eres blinks, slowly. She tries to clear her vision, but it is slow going. “You’ve been drugging her for days now. Don’t you think it’s time she recovers on her own?” 

“I am not _drugging_ her, I am helping her sleep—”

“By using drugs.” 

“It’s a _draught_ not—”

“Shuddup,” Eres mumbles. Both of them freeze.

“Iunwansu.” 

A pause. 

“…Come again?” Serana asks.

Eres sighs. “No sou…p.” Why the hell is the letter P so hard. Who invented it. Where can she find them. Consonants. Terrible ideas. 

“I’d be tired of soup too, if I was you.” Serana murmurs. Into her ear. She is… very close. Eres is starting to come to terms with the fact that sitting half in Serana’s lap also means her mouth is quite close. She should have made that connection before. The sitting is comfortable, at least: Serana is soft, and while not _warm_ , she is still very comfortable and a welcome change from lying in bed, which for some reason Eres feels she has done far too much of. The being-this-close is less comfortable, if only because it makes Eres far too aware of her and it’s like her brain has finally caught up to the idea that she should be nervous. 

Damnit. Serana can probably hear her heartbeat, too. 

“We can find you something solid,” Serana says, and Eres doesn’t know if she means to pat her stomach as she says it or she does it absently, but for some reason Eres finds this hilarious. She starts to laugh to herself, and then she laughs because it really wasn’t that funny to begin with, and she feels kind of stupid for laughing in the first place. “…Yeah, no more draughts for you,” Serana mutters, and hauls her up in one smooth motion. 

In half a second, Eres goes from lounging in the bed to being carried. The shift in position makes her a bit dizzy, but when she manages to focus her eyes again, she sees her. She’s still a bit blurry, but she sees dark hair and pale skin and she knows it’s her even without really being able to see the color of her eyes. It’s fine. She knows Serana is looking at her, anyways, and she smiles all the same. Then she frowns. Her brow furrows. She lifts a hand, and pokes Serana’s very much present cheek. “…Do I want to know why?” 

“Just makin’ sure.” She feels real. That is satisfying. Satisfactory. Good. Serana is either real or Eres’ hallucinations are more impressive than she thought possible. Could a person have physical hallucinations?

Was that a thing? “You’re here?” 

“I am,” Serana answers. “And I’m not going anywhere. And _neither are you_.” 

Eres spreads her hands wide, forgetting she’s in her arms, and nearly smacks Serana in the face. Serana has to yank her head back to avoid getting swatted. 

“Where’m I gonna go?” She can barely _see_. Imagine her _walking_. The horror. She’s embarrassed herself enough already, thank you. She hopes she doesn’t remember any of this in the future. If she’s lucky maybe she can have selective amnesia. Forget all her embarrassments. 

Especially the fact that she’s _allowing_ Serana to carry her to begin with, which. She shouldn’t be. She wouldn’t be, probably. In any other circumstances. But she can barely sit up on her own and she’s not really that keen on attempting to walk and introducing her face to the floor. She’s quite content where she is, actually. 

Serana, however, merely lets out a tired sigh.

“You know,” she says, “considering the last time I left you alone, you ended up _in Coldharbour_ , I think ‘where are you going to go’ is a legitimate concern. You’re going downstairs. You could use some fresh air. And real food, I guess.” 

“I do not think that wise,” says the mystery woman, standing. Serana, when she turns to face the woman, also turns Eres, and she looks a bit clearer, now, if only just. She’s got light brown skin and dark hair and her dress is odd. Eres has never seen one like it. Why is she wearing a blanket? “She must rest.” 

“She has rested, and she’s actually conscious for once. She deserves some fresh air.” 

“Is it worth exhausting her?” 

“Auria,” Serana sighs out, and the woman throws up her hands defensively. 

“Do what you will,” the woman says at last, sounding very much like she would prefer that Serana did not. “But when it takes her longer to recover while you’re out parading her about the Keep, you will find no sympathy from me.” 

“I can’t imagine why Eres wouldn’t like you,” Serana drawls, at her most dry. “You’re just so charming.” 

Eres can’t see it, but she’s sure the look Auria gives Serana is a dirty one. This woman’s kind of mean. Serana is right. Eres doesn’t like her. Because she doesn’t like Serana. It’s only fair. “I’m _hungry_ ,” she reminds Serana, though, because her brain can only focus on one thing at a time just now and her stomach is growling. 

“Okay, okay,” Serana says, but even the exasperation in her voice sounds fond. Like she’s putting on the exasperation as a ruse. Eres is sure of that. Serana’s always offered to carry her anyway. She’s probably enjoying it, knowing her. Hell, Eres will be lucky if she ever lives this down. 

Well, in that case. She can at least get a bit of fun out of it. 

“Away, noble steed.” She points. At what she hopes is a door. 

Serana laughs. “The door’s the other way, idiot.” 

“Then _that way_. Giddy up.” 

“If you ever say that again I’m dropping you down the stairs.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Long story short, I hit a brick wall in act 7 and had to scrap an entire plotline I was originally planning on simply because it didn't really "fit" with where Eres has been so far. Sometimes you write an outline and shit just doesn't quite work out. On the bright side, I do have an idea for an expanded epilogue that I'd been wondering whether or not to even do because 10 acts seemed like a good place to stop, so, yay! Now I have a reason for it. 
> 
> It has been, though, a complete pain in the ass to try to figure out how to rewrite the end of Act 6 to tie into the NEW act 7 which should've been act 8. Which I have not started writing yet either. I planned to always be an act ahead, but hitting that wall really sapped me somehow. Hoping that posting this up will give me a swift kick in the pants to get writing again.  
> Also, due to the above reasons, I haven't gone over this act as much as I have others, so forgive me for any typos/grammar issues. I'll probably come back and do a final pass on this later but I wanted to get it up.


	2. Mikros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is there a plot in this act? Maybe, if you squint. Mostly it's just development. And gays.

“You’re going to get sick if you eat much more of that.”

Eres, just to prove a point, takes one last bite. She ignores the protesting of her stomach. She’s had nothing but soup for—for how long? She’s not sure. The point is she’s had nothing but soup and bread is amazing. Sweet bread. Honey bread? It’s not a sweet roll, but it is sweet bread. Sweet-ish. It tastes good, that’s what matters, and it’s _solid_. It is decidedly not soup. She is glad to not be eating soup. Serana had said she’d had nothing but soup for over a week. It’s no wonder she’d been starving. Now her stomach hurts, though. And she’s tired again.

“Are there drugs in this bread?”

Serana snorts. “The way you’ve been going at it? You’d think so, but no.” Serana, pointedly, slides the tray of sweetened bread away from her. Eres, somehow, had eaten nearly an entire loaf. And absolutely nothing else. “Satisfied?”

Eres makes a face.

“Your stomach hurts, doesn’t it?” Eres turns her attention to the window. She’s not going to answer that question. That would be admitting she’s wrong. And it looks so nice out there. Part of her wants to go outside. The other part of her does not want to go if she has to be carried. She would like to preserve what little remains of her dignity. She deserves that much, doesn’t she? “I told you to take it easy. You’re supposed to start slowly.”

“How would you know?” Eres mutters, though she doesn’t really mean it. Serana is smart. Of course she knows. Of course _Eres_ knows too. Logically. But the bread had been good. In the moment, that had been all that mattered. Now she regrets it. Not that she’ll admit it.

“I know a few things here and there.” A beat. Then, “I read it in a book once.”

Eres smiles to herself. Yes, that sounds like Serana. “Can you take me upstairs?”

When she looks at Serana, she sees surprise on her face. Now that she’s eaten, and been awake and about for an hour, she can finally see straight again. Doesn’t stop her eyelids from feeling like they’re weighed down with lead, but at least she’s not half blind anymore. It’s nice to see Serana again. Nicer than Eres has the words to describe. But there’s something about seeing her, about being with her again, that’s also a little terrifying, in its own way.

Eres had gone to Coldharbour for her. Eres had _told_ her that. What if she already knows? What is she supposed to do now? Is there something she should be doing? Or… She’s not sure. Now’s probably not the best time to be wracking her brain about it. Gods forbid. She’d end up thinking about it and then saying something mortifying out loud and not be able to take it back. She’d never be able to face her again. And here she is, asking Serana to carry her upstairs like that’s _normal_. Maybe she should just go back to sleep. That would be safer.

“You actually want to go back up there?”

“I want to sit on the balcony.”

Serana raises a brow. “You can sit out here.”

Eres makes a face. “But then everyone will see you carrying me.”

Serana tries to hide her smile. Eres thinks that she does try, but she does a very poor job of it. “And that’s a problem because…?”

“Because I’m not an invalid.” Usually. She is currently, but it’s temporary. “I don’t want to be an invalid.”

“You are not an invalid,” Serana says, very patiently. But she looks thoroughly amused.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I am not,” she says, very seriously. Her face is very serious, anyways. Her eyes are not.

“You are on the inside.”

“A little,” Serana admits. Eres can’t even be mad at her. She looks so happy. Eres likes seeing her happy, even if it’s at her own expense. “You’re being silly. No one will make fun of you if you go outside. They know what you’ve been through.” At this, Serana looks much less happy. She looks sad. Troubled. Eres doesn’t like that. “Why are you pouting?”

“I’m not pouting.” Eres does not _pout_. “You look sad.”

“I’m not sad.” Serana smiles. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m glad you’re home.” For a moment, Serana just looks at her, like she’s trying to memorize her. To commit her to memory. Like she’s afraid Eres might disappear if she looks away for too long. “I just don’t like remembering you in Coldharbour. That was…” Serana looks away from her. There’s pain in her eyes, tight around her lips. Eres’ heart aches to see it. “Difficult for me.”

“I’m sorry.” When Serana’s gaze snaps back to Eres, the woman actually looks like she’s contemplating smacking her. “I mean, for making you worry.”

“Idiot,” Serana mutters. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

At that, Eres sighs. “It’s not your fault. Can you take me outside?”

Serana’s brow furrows. She seems a little confused by the sudden change of topics. “The balcony, or…?”

“The balcony.” Eres sighs. “I want to at least have a nice view if we’re going to have this conversation. And I’d rather it be in private.” There. She actually sounds very normal, there. Here’s to hoping she can manage to keep her sense about her when they get upstairs. She’s still tired as all hell, and she kind of wants to just go to sleep, but. She doesn’t want to do that while Serana is still blaming herself for what happened. She refuses. Serana deserves peace just as much as she does.

Serana stands. Eres forces herself to keep her expression neutral as she bends close to lift her into her arms. It still feels far too embarrassing to be carried in such a manner, and Serana is so _close_ , and she smells good, and hey—actually, her hair’s a bit shorter than Eres realized. Eres’ hand is at the base of her neck before she can manage to stop herself. Silken hair brushes against her fingertips.

Serana stumbles, swearing under her breath. Eres’ hand clutches instinctively at the back of her shirt. When Serana rights herself, Eres finds that her hand drifts right back to the short hairs at the base of Serana’s neck. They’re baby-soft and very fine and the strands feel like silk against her skin. “I never noticed how short your hair was.”

“Can you—stop that, please,” Serana mumbles, taking the stairs a bit more slowly than Eres had expected, as if she can actually feel Eres’ weight, for once. As if she’s not stupidly strong.

Then Eres remembers, and she snatches her hand back, feeling horribly guilty. “Sorry,” she says quickly. She shouldn’t have touched her like that without permission. What is she, twelve? She’s got better manners than that.

“No, not—” Serana climbs faster. She doesn’t look at Eres. “It’s distracting,” she mumbles. She actually seems… embarrassed? Is she _ticklish_? Can vampires even _be_ ticklish? “You can, uh—you can do…that, if you want to, I mean. It doesn’t bother me,” she says quickly. “Just maybe not when I’m carrying you.”

Oh. Eres leans back a little in Serana’s arms, if only to see her face a bit more clearly. Is that a blanket permission? Eres almost wants to test it. The part of her that is desperate to tell Serana _everything_ wants to, anyways. Give an inch, take a mile. The logical part of her brain knows better, even if it’s shouted down half the time. Especially now, when she’s not quite—quite _what_ , exactly? Sober? Is she still on drugs? What was it that woman gave her again? Does it matter, if it gives her the ability to play with Serana’s hair without consequences? Lay in her arms, get carried around, sit in her lap? Maybe she should take drugs more often.

No, that’s silly. She’s not an idiot. That would be stupid. But. She does kind of wish that easy confidence and total lack of self awareness would carry over even when the draughts wear off. It would be nice to just… not care. Not care what other people thought. Not care if doing something makes her look stupid. Not care about getting embarrassed, or flustered, or other people making a joke of you. Not care if you’re a bit more touchy with one of your friends than you probably should be. That—the last one especially. That would be nice. She wishes she could be that carefree normally, but it’ll eventually wear off, she’s sure. Maybe it’s already starting to, if she’s thinking about it now.

All things considered, Serana is not having a terrible day.

Eres woke up just hours ago, and for the first time, she had been relatively coherent—or at the very least, she had at least been far more aware of her surroundings than she had been any time previously. Serana had been afraid to even hope that it would last, half-convincing herself that Eres would only descend into incoherent ramblings again before she fell back into whatever dreamworld she had been spending the last week-and-some in. She had been afraid to hope for better, to hope that Eres would finally come around and start acting like herself again, to hope that Eres would be _present_ and accounted for, to hope that, finally, after what felt like years, Serana might be able to actually speak with her again.

She had not, however, planned on—well, pretty much anything that had happened since she’d woken up. Serana has been, in effect, about one step away from a nervous breakdown for the last three hours.

She had grabbed Eres on that bed in an attempt to help her sit up, to help Auria to feed her. She had not expected that this would put her in the position it had—that being, of course, Eres practically in her lap, and apparently quite content with being there. Serana had been almost certain she’d felt a phantom pounding of a heartbeat in her chest for just a second, when Eres had leaned against her. Why hadn’t anyone told her just how nervewracking this would be? The books had never done this feeling justice. None of them had ever prepared her for feeling like she’s going to combust at any given second when Eres touches her, or looks at her, or just. Exists in her general vicinity. It’s a bit much.

It’s a _lot_ much, actually, and Serana kind of misses being entirely unaware of the nature of her affection for Eres. It had been simpler when she hadn’t been certain, when she’d been just a little confused, a little lost as to why she cared so much about Eres and her safety and her opinion and her everything. Of course, it had all seemed very obvious _after_ she’d figured it out, but back then, in the moment, she’d thought, ‘Huh. Maybe this is just what it’s like to have a good friend’.

Serana, back then, had been staggeringly moronic. Yes, because all ‘friends’ feel a little rush when their friend smiles at them. Because _friends_ definitely get distracted by the movement of their friend’s lips when they speak. Because it’s totally normal to feel a buzzing heat beneath your skin when your friend touches you, or looks at you, or just says something kind of silly and endearing and… Gods, she’s a mess. She hadn’t thought it would be this hard to just—to just be _normal_ around Eres.

It helps, a little, that Eres is still out of it. Serana watches this tiny little elf girl tuck away nearly an entire loaf of sweet bread almost as long as Serana’s entire arm in one sitting. That’s. Decidedly unusual, yes. Also strangely endearing. Everything she does is endearing. Is it normal to find everything about them endearing? Is that a thing? It seems a bit excessive, honestly. Maybe Serana’s just…making up for lost time, or something. She can’t remember a time she’s ever felt like this for another person, and she’s been alive for millennia. Maybe this is her brain’s way of fucking her over by making her experience the full range of thousands of years worth of human emotions in a single day. That seems about accurate. Maybe.

She’s being a bit dramatic, maybe. But it feels that way. She can’t so much as look at Eres without…without wanting. Not even wanting anything specific, just— _wanting_ , in general. She wants. She wants Eres, and she doesn’t even know _how_ she wants her. It’s not—it’s not like _that_ , really. (It might be, a little. Maybe.) Serana hasn’t even thought about that. That’s not really—no. She has enough trouble being normal around Eres without descending into the bottomless pit that is wondering just what _that_ might be like, for her. For them. No. She doesn’t think about that at all, because she can barely handle the idea of even kissing her.

Serana wants to, of course. Eres has nice lips. They look soft. Who wouldn’t want to kiss her? But Serana thinks of that, thinks of how she might initiate that, of what it might be like, and if Eres would even reciprocate, and it feels like her brain just—stops working. It just feels like everything in her mind comes to a skidding, terrifying halt. How can she think of that? Eres is her _friend._ Eres might not even feel the same. What if she rejects it? _What if she doesn_ _’t?_ Serana thought she had driven herself mad in Coldharbour, but even that feels trivial compared to how completely out of sorts she feels _now_. It had been easier to come to terms with her feelings for Eres when Eres hadn’t been right in front of her.

When Eres hadn’t been right in front of her, just. Being beautiful in everything she does. Being—being _Eres._

Most notably, when Eres hadn’t been in front of her, being beautiful and _also_ half delirious and _very_ touchy suddenly which is something Serana just _cannot_ deal with but also she can’t outright reject it because then what if Eres doesn’t ever touch her again because she thinks Serana doesn’t like it? What if Eres gets the wrong impression? But also, she’s fairly certain she’s going to die. She doesn’t know if it’s possible for a vampire to die of a heart attack, but if it is, it would be her, and it would be Eres’ fault.

Who just—who just _touches_ the back of someone’s neck like that?

Serana, carrying Eres up the stairs to the balcony, feels the ghost of a touch at the nape of her neck, and thinks it’s her imagination. That ghost then becomes something very much solid, fingers threading through the hair at the base of her skull, blunted nails scratching gently at her scalp. She very nearly trips over her own gods-damned feet, nearly _drops her_ just from surprise, just from the feeling that evokes in her. Hair doesn’t seem that intimate, on its own. It’s just hair. It is, however, _very_ intimate, when it’s touched by someone you’re kind of in love with and also, is it _normal_ to feel that chill racing down your spine when someone touches you there? It seems excessive.

Everything seems excessive. So very excessive. Serana wishes she could put a dam on her emotions, just dial them back a little until she’s properly prepared to deal with them. She’s not equipped to handle all of this at once. Is there anyone who even _could_ be?

“I never noticed how short your hair was,” Eres muses, close to her ear. Too close. Why the hell is she trying to look at her hair _now,_ of all times?

“Can you—” A shiver runs down her spine. Excessive. So fucking _excessive_. Stop it. “Stop that, please,” she manages, when she is able to speak without stuttering.

Eres snatches her hand back. “Sorry,” she says, looking abashed.

“No, not—” the words tumble from Serana’s mouth before she even thinks to say them. They’re just there, and then they’re out in the open before she can think about what they mean. She climbs faster. That’s not what she meant. This is what she’d been afraid of. Now Eres thinks she doesn’t like it. “It’s distracting.”

That’s a little mortifying to admit. A little too close to home. She’s fine. It’s fine. Eres probably won’t even remember this. She hopes. She wants to at least be a little more suave than this.

But.

She really doesn’t want Eres to think she’s upset about it. Because she can understand why Eres might think so. Why she might assume that Serana _would_ be bothered by it. And maybe, maybe if it was anyone else—hell, _definitely_ if it was anyone else—Serana would be bothered by it. She would hate it. She’d felt uncomfortable when her mother hugged her back at Fort Dawnguard, and that was her mother.

But she’d always felt at home with Eres. And if there’s anyone she’s completely comfortable with touching her whenever they want to, without permission, it’s Eres. In fact, she’d—she’d probably like it to happen a bit more. She’d always been too hesitant to initiate it. How does one politely ask a person to touch you more often?

Platonically, of course. Serana had thought that even before. Before she’d realized, anyways, but perhaps it had always been attraction, and she just hadn’t known it yet.

“You can uh—you can do…” Serana had considered herself eloquent once upon a time. Whatever happened to that, anyways? And why does it feel so impossible to call it what it is? “…That, if you want to, I mean. It doesn’t bother me.” _That,_ she says. Like she can’t say it out loud. Because she can’t. Something about ‘You can play with my hair anytime if you want to’ seems a little. Revealing. A bit too much, at this stage. If she’d gone and said that much, she might as well have just confessed on the spot.

That would have been awkward.

“Just maybe not when I’m carrying you.” Serana doesn’t know if she’ll ever really have a habit of carrying Eres around bridal-style, as much as she doesn’t mind to do it, but. Definitely not a good idea to have Eres touching her so intimately while she’s doing it. She already needs to concentrate enough just to keep track of the conversation. If Eres starts doing that all the time, she’s doomed. Fuck.

Eres hums in her ear, leans back a bit in her arms. Serana twists to avoid slamming her head into the wall. She will, at the very least, be glad when Eres regains her sense of spatial awareness. If it’s not almost being smacked in the face herself, it’s keeping Eres from giving herself a concussion somehow. Like she needs any more brain damage than she probably already has from the mantling.

The trip to the balcony has never felt so long, but finally, they get there. Serana sets Eres on the lounge seat, and is immediately asked for a blanket. Because she’s cold, apparently. It’s the middle of spring. Should she be worried? She brings it anyways, drapes it over her. When Eres thanks her with a smile, Serana briefly forgets that she’s supposed to be sitting elsewhere. That there’s a whole conversation they’re meant to have. Like adults do.

“Uh,” Serana says, at her most elegant, without intending to.

Eres looks up at her curiously. Horrifyingly, she actually scoots over on the lounge. “Did you want to sit with me?” She holds the blanket up. “It’s probably big enough for both of us.”

“Uhhh,” Serana says again, much longer. She waits for her brain to catch up. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Eres gives her a weird look. “It’s a blanket, Serana, not a death sentence.”

Serana is being _weird_. She’s most definitely not being very normal at all. She’s supposed to be normal. Which might mean sitting next to Eres on a very small lounge where they will definitely be touching and under a blanket. Together.

She’s fucking four thousand years old, _why_ is she afraid of this? This is stupid. This is beyond silly. She’s a grown woman. It’s just a seat. It’s just a blanket. It’s fine.

Serana sits down. Her legs are much longer than Eres’. Her feet actually almost reach the end of the lounge chair. Eres’ feet brush against the fabric just above her ankles, when she moves. She is aware of every brush of physical contact between them, and suddenly her entire right side is alight with nerves.

Oh, she shouldn’t have done this. Bad idea.

Eres holds the blanket up for Serana. Serana takes it, numbly, tucks it around her own shoulders as she sees Eres do. She’s not cold—it takes a lot for her to be _cold_ , actually, but Eres seems content with the blanket that high and so she goes with it. But it traps body heat, and Eres is much closer now than she had been on the nights where Serana had watched over her sleeping, when Auria was abed. She’d thought she’d been far too aware of Eres’ proximity _then_. She wants to laugh at her past self. Fool. That’s nothing.

Eres yawns. It’s cute. Because of course it would be. Why would it be anything else?

“You wanted to talk?” Serana prompts, because the silence is killing her. The silence makes her think, and her thoughts are way too loud and Eres is way too close. She’s made a terrible mistake, sitting with her like this.

“It’s nice out here,” Eres says instead. Serana looks at her. She almost regrets it immediately, but then she sees the look on Eres’ face—something a bit sad, a bit distant, a bit wistful—and it catapults her mind right out of _‘I’m in love and don’t know how this works’_ territory and right into worrying territory.

“Eres?” Serana asks. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm?” Eres looks at her. The sun illuminates her eyes, making the grey sharper, clearer, almost silver under the light of day. She has beautiful eyes, really. Serana has always thought so. “I’m fine,” she says.

She sounds normal when she says it, at least, so maybe she is. But Serana doubts it.

“It’s just nice to see the sky again.”

Serana frowns. “The sky?”

“It’s—it changes,” Eres says haltingly. She nods, jerking her chin upwards. She refuses to move her hands from being huddled beneath the blanket. “The clouds are moving. There weren’t any clouds in Coldharbour. And the sun—or, whatever it was, never moved. It was always the same. Every single day.”

Serana’s heart sinks. Dread curls low in her stomach. She hates this. She hates that Eres went through that, and she hadn’t been there with her. She hadn’t been able to go in there herself. She _hates_ it.

But she has to know. She doesn’t want to know, not really, but she needs to. She needs to.

“How long were you in there?” She asks. “I mean—how long was it for you? Do you know, with the time distortions?”

Eres’ eyes track the movement of the clouds. She seems content simply to watch them, shifting and changing and growing above her head. Serana doesn’t remember what the sky of Coldharbour looks like. She’s glad she doesn’t, if it can make someone like Eres so wistful about clouds, of all things. It must have been a more nightmarish hellscape than even Serana remembered it being. After all, Greymarch hadn’t been there back when—well. Back then.

“Not sure,” Eres admits. Her eyes shift to a new cloud. Serana looks, but she can’t pinpoint which one she’s looking at. They all look the same to her. “It feels like it was a long time. But I don’t remember a lot of it, still.”

Serana swallows past the tightness in her throat. “Maybe it’s better that way. That you’ve forgotten it.”

Eres shrugs. Serana feels the movement against her side, a reminder of how closely they’re pressed together. “Maybe,” Eres says idly, even so. “I want to stay out here for a while. Is that okay?”

The longing on Eres’ face is hard to look at. Hard to even understand, to truly sympathize with. Serana doesn’t know what it’s like to be her. She’ll probably never know. But it hurts to look at Eres, and see such a longing for something as ordinary as _cloud-watching_. How terrible could Coldharbour have been to her that something so simple would bring her so much comfort? Something like the sky, just by itself? Serana doesn’t want to imagine it.

“Anything you want,” Serana tells her. “You don’t have to ask me for permission.”

“Okay.” Eres’ weight settles more solidly against her side. Serana, very carefully, does not move.

They remain there for nearly two hours, before Auria finds them. The woman steps slowly onto the balcony, looking a bit uncertain when Eres looks up at her.

Auria clears her throat. “What you two doing out here? Inigo was looking for you.”

As if summoned, the cat pops his head out of the interior room to look at them on the balcony. He grins from ear to ear when he sees Eres up and alert, and waves excitedly from behind her.

Eres glances up to the clouds. They’ve darkened considerably since they first came out here, but though Serana had asked, she’d refused to come inside until it rained.

“Watching a storm get born,” is what Eres says. Serana raises a brow, first at the phrasing, and then more so at the fractured look that flashes over Auria’s face, the suddenly glossy eyes, the thin, shaky smile.

“What do you mean?” Inigo comes out, squints up at the clouds. “Storms don’t _get born_.”

At that, Auria actually looks as though she might burst into tears. Serana stares at her, baffled, but the woman merely straightens her spine, clears her throat, and pushes whatever emotions had bubbled up in her back to just beneath the surface.

“Would you mind if I sit with you?” Auria asks Eres.

Eres shrugs. “Go ahead.” She does not stop leaning against Serana.

In the end, Eres falls asleep long before the rains start. Serana stays outside with her all the same, until she hears the first pitter-patters of rainfall on the rooftops. When she lifts Eres up as the rain begins, the girl stirs.

“It’s raining,” Serana murmurs to her. “Let me take you inside.”

Eres holds her hand out. Rain splatters over her fingertips, and she smiles, beatific. Her eyes shine happily when she looks back to Serana. “There wasn’t any weather there,” she says, as explanation. “I missed the weather.”

“Well.” Perhaps she holds Eres a bit tighter than she needs to. It’s just—it’s _sad_. It’s heartwrenching. Eres had to have been there so much longer than a couple of weeks, for her to act this way. “There’s plenty of weather here in Skyrim for you. It’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I hope it rains tomorrow,” Eres muses aloud, as they reenter her bedroom.

“Maybe it will.” Serana might just find a way to open the skies up _for her_ , at this rate. If it makes her this happy.

Auria watches them go, uncharacteristically silent. She remains, standing out in the rain, for a long time.

_“Maman?”_

_Auria looks down at the tug at her long dress, and she cannot help the fond smile that stretches across her lips. She_ _’s getting so big, now. Before long, Auria is going to wish she would stop growing and slow down. She’s going to miss her little one being **little** , in a few years. _ _“Yes?”_

 _Auria watches, patiently over one shoulder, as her little one creeps a bit further out onto the balcony. Big, dark eyes flicker uncertainly toward the sky. She_ _’s always been afraid of storms, the poor thing. She’d probably heard the thunder and come running._

_“What are you doing out here, maman?”_

_Auria beckons with a hand._ _“Watching a storm get born, Mikros.” She beckons again, curling her fingers up toward her palm. Her little one shuffles just a single baby step forward. That little… Auria grins at her. “Come, join me.”_

 _But her little one frowns at her, her brow furrowing Very Seriously. She looks at Auria almost pityingly._ _“Storms don’t **get born** , Maman._ _”_

_“Of course they do.” Auria gives up on getting her little one to join her willingly. She turns in her seat, gathering her into her arms, and sets her upon her lap, wrapping her life’s greatest love in her palla until she is warm and bundled against her. And cannot escape her dastardly clutches. “Watch with me.”_

_Her little one sinks low into her arms, pulling the silken cloth of Auria_ _’s palla until it wraps tight against her back so that she can pull it nearly to cover her eyes. She is frightened, even in Auria’s arms—but this will break her of it, Auria is sure. Auria is there to show her that storms are nothing to be afraid of. Nothing but a symbol of renewal and rebirth. One should always give thanks to the gods for such storms. It is a good omen._

 _Auria bends her head close, and into her little one_ ’ _s ears she sings the Song of Rebirth, soft and slow as she rocks with her in her arms. She is so small. And so lovely. It stuns her every day that something so precious could have come from a man so terrible. She is the only good thing Auria has in this world, now. She is everything. Auria did not know it possible to love something as much as she loves this one, small child who is afraid of storms, and grasshoppers, and slamming doors and men who shout too loudly._

_Auria rests her cheek upon the top of a little dark head of hair._

_She had lost everything, once. But now she has **her** , and that is all that matters. That is enough. It is more than enough. She is all Auria will ever need._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone who's played ACO probably recognizes the "mikros" term as being greek for "little one" or whatever. I gave up with trying to come up with a "bosmeri" language. It will probably just end up being a blend of different loan words for the few times people actually speak it. Fairly certain "Maman" is French lol just go with it.


	3. Divide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still haven’t even started rewriting act 7 yet lmaooo. In my defense, my Eres save completely shat the bed like a month ago and I’ve been reworking my load order ever since. Finally think I’m settled.. with almost 1100 mods. How many mods before it’s not even skyrim anymore? agdjfj

Serana can’t remember the last time she hunted. Even while at Fellburg, she had ignored her baser needs to keep watch over Eres, especially when Auria slept at night. With Eres awake now, and becoming increasingly irritated with the people who see fit to hover around her, Serana had decided it was as good a time as any to hunt for the first time since Inigo had found them at Fort Dawnguard nearly a month prior.

She knows, of course, that it is not _her_ that Eres is annoyed with, but rather the situation wherein the people around her continue to treat her as an invalid even as she regains her strength. If there is anything that Eres seems to dislike, it is being doted on hand and foot by those around her.

Even so, Serana had figured it a good idea to give her a bit of space. Not—not a whole lot, mind you, but. Enough. Just for a few hours. When Serana had told Eres where she’d be, Eres had even looked a bit confused as to why Serana had bothered to tell her. Of course Serana doesn’t _need_ to report her whereabouts to Eres. That doesn’t mean it’s not polite to do so, especially when they’ve been apart for so long. She just doesn’t want Eres to think that Serana is avoiding her.

Which she isn’t. She’s been around Eres nearly non-stop, especially since she awakened. Even when she sleeps, Serana is usually in the room, reading, or just down the hall within earshot if she starts fitting in her sleep again.

Eres still sleeps in fits and starts, waking at times and tossing and turning, but she at least claims not to remember the dreams that haunt her, and Serana doesn’t pry.

If Eres actually _does_ remember, and just doesn’t want to talk about them, Serana will respect that. Eres will tell her if and when she wants to. Serana doesn’t have to know _everything_ about her, much as she might like to.

So, no. Serana isn’t avoiding her at all.

What she _is_ avoiding, however; is her feelings for her. Going on a hunt to work out her frustration and catch a bit of fresh air to clear her head had sounded like a good idea. Her nerves had been on a razor’s edge for over a month, she’d had nothing but tepid, bottled blood for just as long, and maybe a part of her had been itching for a good fight. Not that the bandits in the hills near Fellburg have much to offer in that regard, but it’s better than nothing.

She even makes a point of visiting Pinewatch, and when she finds that a few stragglers have decided to move in and pick up where the old bandits had left off, Serana disposes of them, too, though by that point she’s hardly hungry anymore, and these ones reek of Skooma.

Even at her most desperate, Serana avoids the addicts. She’s seen quite a few vampires fall victim to an addiction borne from just ingesting the blood of those who had those toxins in their system, and she’s not keen on having first-hand experience with that.

Just to make a point of them, Serana gathers them all up and ties them to the base of the road sign’s post, with a little note for the guard that is perhaps a bit on the nose.

_To Jarl Siddgeir, with love._

She doesn’t know for sure that these bandits had also been in the pockets of the Jarl, but she wouldn’t be surprised. Men as corrupt as Siddgeir never knew when to throw the towel in while they’re ahead. Perhaps if he thinks all his attempts at extortion might not only be thwarted, but aired out for the general public to see, he might clean up his act lest he risk a rebellion.

Honestly, Serana’s a bit surprised they’ve not rebelled already. Just one good person with a dagger could put an end to him, and install a better Jarl in his place. One who, for example, might actually give a damn about the people who serve him and live under his rule. But as they say, power corrupts - and Serana has almost always found that to be true.

The only exception she can think of, perhaps, is Eres.

It’s a bit odd, to think of Eres as _powerful_.

Of course she knows, intrinsically, that Eres is indeed powerful. She had faced down Harkon. She had gone to Coldharbour and survived. She’d fought against _Molag Bal_ and had won. She is the fated Dragonborn, likely only to grow more powerful in the days and years to come where she might be called upon to fulfill her destiny. She had mantled a _god,_ and lived to tell about it. With at least most of her sanity intact.

By all respects, Eres is—actually a bit terrifying to think about, seeing one woman with so much power already, and so much potential to grow even stronger in the future. Serana thinks of her, and she can’t help but feel like she’s barely scratched the surface, like she’s only seen the very tip of the iceberg of what this one girl is capable of. But at the same time, to her, Eres is _just Eres_. It’s hard to think of her in terms of power, when all Serana can see is Eres the friend, Eres the potential… well, _something_ , maybe.

Eres, Eres, Eres. Not Dragonborn. Not aspect of Shezarr, temporary though it might have been. Not even Keeper of the Vigil, or whatever she’s considered at Fellburg—would it be Lady?

Fellburg isn’t nearly big enough to constitute a Jarl, but it’s the size of a small town, at least, and “Lady” seems like rather an understatement for just how much land Eres owns on her estate. Somehow, there isn’t a single title Eres has been given that seems to fit what she is in Serana’s mind.

When she finishes with the bandits at Pinewatch, it is approaching midday, hours after she had initially set out. She returns in haste, though she slows as she reaches the gates. She is fairly certain anyone who has seen her or Valerica is already quite aware they are vampires, but there’s no reason for her to cause a panic by blowing through the town at full speed.

Serana has spent even less time among the general populace than she has out hunting. Aside from the first meeting with Yosef and Johanna, the two who claim to have been entrusted with Eres’ estate in her absence, Serana had made a point of keeping herself scarce even when she had gotten antsy enough to wander around the Keep while Eres slept on.

It’s not just that she has no interest in engaging with them, but more that she can sense their unease at such a sudden intrusion within their home. That they are Eres’ friends and companions is likely the only reason they have been allowed to remain within Fellburg’s walls. She imagines the two are not especially fond of vampires, themselves, though supposedly her mother has taken to working alongside the Rectoress to produce lesson plans for the mage students.

That had been something that had thrown her for a bit of loop. Her mother, _teaching_. Of course her mother had taught _her—_ she had been Valerica’s protege. But even the idea of Valerica aiding in the tutelage of young children from the shadows is a difficult one to reconcile with her own image of her mother. It seems somehow antithetical to Valerica’s very existence.

Inigo, Serana knows, spends much of his time outside the Keep. Serana does not know why, only that she rarely sees him within it, and she, upon looking outside, could often see him below in the bailey, or in the streets near the traders.

Serana had not bothered to ask after him, and his appearance upon the balcony had been the first time she’d seen him up close since they’d first arrived. She remembers, vaguely, that Inigo had expressed his discomfort at hovering at Eres’ bedside, and instead had entrusted her care to herself and Auria, as they all had. Surprisingly mature of him, considering what Serana had seen of him up to then.

Isran, on the other hand, did not know the meaning of leisure. The first day, he had remained within the Keep, though he kept his distance from Eres’ room. By the second day, Serana had seen him out in the yards with Fellburg’s guards. By the third day, he had already begun drilling them alongside one of the guard captains. Let it be known that Isran is not a man who turns away work when he sees it. Serana doesn’t know whether he does it merely because he has nothing else to do with himself, or if he does it because he too has nerves and frustrations to burn off, and drilling a few young lads helps him do it. He certainly seems to enjoy barking at them well enough.

Isran, though, had been a bit of a mystery; a bit of an enigma. He had seemed especially concerned the first couple of days. Then, seemingly at random, he had distanced himself, and only entered the Keep to ask after Eres once per day - every morning, just after he drilled the men at dawn. He asked only once, and would ask for no further details than what was offered. When that was done, he would leave again. He had even taken to sleeping in the barracks rather than the Keep itself.

Serana had her suspicions about Isran since Coldharbour, but his self-imposed distance confused her. If he cared as much about Eres as he seems to, then why did he try so hard to pretend that he did not? Serana knows, too, that even Eres herself has not seen Isran since she regained her consciousness. Eventually, that girl is going to track him down, and Isran is going to find himself confronted before he’s ready for it, Serana is sure.

Mirabelle, Serana knows even less about. At times, she can be found with Lady Miren, taking up the role of a secondary instructor, especially in the arcane arts. Other times, Serana will glimpse her walking or sitting with Auria from a distance, but never closely enough that Serana can hear what they speak of.

More often than not, Serana does not see or hear from her for days on end, only for her to reappear at random with no explanation as to her whereabouts. She assumes that Mirabelle, given her skill in the arcane, has likely set up a more permanent solution for teleportation between Fellburg and the College, and simply travels back and forth at will.

Why Mirabelle continues to return here, however, instead of remaining at the College where she belongs, Serana does not know. She tries not to consider the idea it may be something deeper than visiting an old friend. Something that might involve Eres. Eres has enough to worry about without having the College breathing down her neck for some reason in the future.

When Serana walks into Eres’ bedchambers, she is not altogether surprised to see Auria in attendance. Aside from the few moments the woman spends with Mirabelle, or actually attending to what little duties she has outside of Eres herself, Auria spends most of her time either with Eres or very close by.

She knows, too, that Auria means to gain her trust and confidence, and has been rather insistent at inserting herself into Eres’ life in whichever way she can, even if Eres herself has still not made the connection, likely thanks to Auria’s useful little glamor.

She is a bit surprised, however, to find both of them seated on the floor, an ornate wooden box set between them with little figurines carved from wood set upon the board in what seems to be no specific manner. The little figurines appear to be tiny, two-inch tall miniature carvings of men, half of which are painted the red and gold of the Empire. The other, black and silver, which Serana at least _believes_ is meant to represent the Thalmor, perhaps, though she’s not entirely certain.

Upon the flat, polished top of the wooden box, a grid has been engraved into the wood, and where each line intersects, there is a tiny round peg hole. In many of these pegholes, the miniature figurines of the soldiers have been set into them, each of them boasting a tiny little nub at the base that is inserted into the peg and allows them to stand upright.

The grid itself is a perfect square, divided into fourths not unlike a compass. The southwestern area of the board, closest to Eres, is nearly full of these little peg soldiers, a smattering of both red and black everywhere that Serana looks. The other squares are much sparser, though they have all begun to acquire little collections of peg soldiers themselves.

Serana stands above them, squinting down at it, but she can’t for the life of her figure out what exactly it is. She knows it’s a board game, at least, that much is obvious, and it appears to be strategical, if the twin looks of deep concentration on both Auria and Eres’ faces are anything to go by, but she has no idea of how the game might be played, what the goal is, or how to tell which of them is winning.

“What is this?”

Neither of them look up from the board, but Eres does straighten a little. “ _Katak_ ,” she says absently, and it certainly does not sound like any Alessian word Serana has ever heard. “It’s a wargame.” Eres picks up one of the little peg soldiers from the tray balanced across her lap, and places it in a seemingly random hole on the southeastern side of the board.

“And the point of it is…?”

Eres looks up at her, then frowns. “Sit down. You’re already tall enough as it is.”

At that, Serana smirks a little, but she does sit down next to her. The wooden box is about a foot long on either side, and though Serana could have easily placed herself on one of the unoccupied sides, she instead chooses to sit near the corner, closer to Eres. Eres at least does not seem to mind, seemingly gratified that she can now look at Serana without craning her neck.

“It’s a strategy game.” Eres points at the board.

“I gathered that much.” Serana eyes the board. Eres had put a red soldier there, but she can’t guess at why; its placement had seemed entirely random. “What’s the point of it? Are you winning?”

Eres sours. “No,” she huffs. “I haven’t played this since I was a kid,” she says, as if to excuse her apparent loss. Auria chuckles across from her. The woman very casually places one of her own little soldiers, and Eres narrows her eyes suspiciously as she watches. “The goal is to take as much territory as you can.”

Serana snorts. “Very Imperial of you.”

“It’s an Imperial game. Well,” Eres adds, ”it was originally Bosmeri, supposedly.” At that, Auria nods absently. “But we played it a lot in the capital.” She doesn’t argue how very fitting it is for an Imperial game to be focused around seizing territory. Probably because they both know it’s true. “I’m bad at it.”

Serana looks. “You have just as many soldiers as she does.”

Eres points, leaning to trace her finger above a section of the southwestern edge of the board, where little black-and-silver peg soldiers encapsulate a contingent of red-and-gold. She smells sweet, like vanilla and sugar. Serana would bet good coin she’s been into the sweet bread again. “Those are captured,” she says. “If you surround the other person’s soldiers, all the territory belongs to you, and they can’t be moved.”

Serana peers at the board, and just how many peg holes are remaining, as well as the collection of little peg soldiers in Eres’ tray. “How long do one of these games take, exactly?” 

Auria laughs at that. “One rarely ever _finishes_ a game of _Katak_ ,” she says, “It takes too long. One simply plays until the victor is clear.” Auria watches Eres place her next soldier with not a small amount of amusement.

“Though there are tournaments in which people play to finish, it can take several days to finish just one game, and they often end in stalemates. It’s more common to play until someone gains a clear advantage. Like me, for example.”

At that, Eres sighs, sending a short glare in Auria’s direction.

“If it’s a Bosmer game, why are they Imperial soldiers?” Serana asks, curious.

“The game originated in Valenwood, but this is an Imperial board.” Auria answers easily. “At home,” she says of Valenwood, “the pieces are wolves and sheep.”

Odd, but. Rather fitting, for elves so deeply entrenched in nature.

“Looks boring.” Serana admits. She can’t imagine sitting in one place for that long, just going back and forth putting pegs in a board.

Eres lets out a loud sigh, throwing herself back until she lays upon the floor. “It is,” she groans.

“Then why are you playing it?”

“I was bored, and I forgot it’s only fun for the first hour. After that it’s just watching yourself lose more territory and not being able to do anything about it.” Eres props herself up on her elbows, eying Serana critically. “You were gone a while,” she says suddenly. “Where did you even go?”

“To Pinewatch,” Serana answers, shrugging. “Left the Jarl a present.” Eres snorts at that, grinning.

“You shouldn’t encourage antagonizing the _Jarl_ , my lady,” says Auria, somehow sounding very motherly despite the use of such a formal title. Eres rolls her eyes.

“It’s not like he knows who it is. If he doesn’t want to get antagonized, maybe he shouldn’t be such an asshole.”

“Language,” Auria chastises.

“I’m _twenty-four_ ,” Eres mutters, cross. “You’d think you were my mother.”

Serana freezes. Auria freezes. But Eres just turns to climb to her feet, and walks casually away from them towards her wardrobe. “Serana, do you know where Isran is?”

Serana sees Auria let out a quiet, relieved sigh. They were lucky Eres hadn’t been paying attention to either of them. They’d damn near given it away themselves just from their reaction.

“Probably in the training yard,” Serana answers her. “Or in the barracks.” Auria, silently, still looking a bit frazzled, moves to start cleaning up the board and its many, many pieces.

“Do you want to come with me?”

“To see _Isran_?” Eres turns just as Serana grimaces, and Serana is treated with the sound of her laughter.

“Nevermind,” Eres grins at her, pulling her cloak over her shoulders. It’s still a bit strange to see her out of the Vigilant robes Serana had gotten so accustomed to seeing her in, but the cloak makes her look almost exactly as Serana remembered her from their journey in the quest against her father’s ridiculous plans. It is a welcome sight, one that feels almost like a return to normalcy. “I forgot you and him don’t actually get along that well unless you’re forced into it.”

“No, I’ll come,” Serana stands quickly. She should probably have more of a backbone, but well. She’s not going to turn down time with Eres, even if that time does involve Isran. “And we’re not _that_ bad.”

“Anymore,” Eres finishes.

“Anymore,” Serana agrees. She’s right. “I might not be happy about it, but I’ll do it,” she says with a shrug.

“Are you ever happy about anything?” Eres wonders, pulling on her shoes.

“I’m happy you’re here,” Serana answers, almost involuntarily, the words leaving her before she can manage to second guess how they might sound. Eres looks up just briefly enough to smile at her, and Serana can’t breathe for how pleased she looks at the comment. Such a simple thing. Such an offhand phrase. Maybe it’s worth the embarrassment if it makes Eres smile at her like that.

But then she hears a cough, a cough that sounds very much like someone trying poorly to hide a laugh, and she snaps her eyes to Auria to find the woman just barely managing to hide just that. Eres, tugging on her other shoe, doesn’t seem to notice, but Serana does. Auria even looks up to catch her eye, smirking knowingly at her as she tucks the little trays with the peg soldiers back into their divots within the wooden box.

Auria stands, and for a second Serana fears she’s going to say something. But she wipes her face clean, even the amusement in her eyes fading to practiced, polite interest, and she asks, “Will you be taking dinner in your rooms tonight, my lady?”

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Eres mutters, standing as well. She tugs her cloak a bit tighter around her. “It’s just Eres.”

“Of course,” Auria dips her head respectfully, and Serana catches Eres’ brief scowl at the sight.

“I might take dinner in the dining hall,” Eres answers. “You can take the night off, if you want. I think I heard Mirabelle’s been around today.”

“Hm,” Auria hums, though she doesn’t seem too surprised. Somehow, Auria always seems to know when Mirabelle will be at Fellburg. “I shall have to go and see her, then. Thank you—” Eres raises a pointed brow, and Auria corrects herself to, “Eres.”

“Better,” Eres says. Then she looks at Serana. “Can you find Isran with that nose of yours?”

“What do you think I am, a bloodhound?”

“Well…”

“Don’t answer that,” Serana grouses, and maybe she pushes at Eres’ back a bit more insistently than necessary to usher her out of the room. Eres makes a show of stumbling, and she can’t hide her smile.

If only, she thinks. If only they could stay like this forever.

Eres, as it turns out, does not even manage to get very far from her rooms at all before Yosef finds her. She knows from the look on his face that she’s not going to like whatever she has to say. It seems Isran may have to wait, after all.

“Afternoon,” Eres says mildly, stopping as he approaches her with _that_ look on his face. The one that looks on the border of apologetic and uncomfortable. The one that Eres has gotten all too used to seeing, on various people, and always foretells a conversation she’s not going to be very happy at the end of. “What is it, then?” She asks, and Yosef winces. Oh, she’s definitely not going to like this.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he says, and he grimaces a little. His eyes flicker to her left, where Serana stands beside her, and he seems to shrink even further. Eres, frowning, looks over at her, but Serana is only standing there, her arms crossed over her chest. She’d almost expected to find Serana glaring at him, with how Yosef seemed to cower in her presence. Perhaps he’s just uncomfortable with her vampiric nature. Eres will have to break him of that, she thinks.

“Go on,” she urges him. She steps to the side as she sees an approaching house servant, tugging at Serana’s arm to pull her aside as well so they’re not blocking the hallway. “What’s the matter?”

“Do you remember last time you were here, when I said you ought to see about going to meet with the Jarl?” Yosef asks her, instead. Eres frowns, nodding. “Well,” Yosef scratches at the back of his neck, looking away from her. “He’s sent some of his men down here, and—”

Eres’ brows snap together, ire leaping within her. “He’s sent his _thugs_ here? For what?”

“Well, they’re—I think they’re guards, actually?” Yosef asks more than states, sounding uncertain. “But one of them claims to be a steward of the Jarl, and he’s demanding an audience with you. Also demanding that we _receive him properly_ , as he said.” Yosef shrugs helplessly. “Whatever that means. Something about hospitality?”

Eres turns her eyes to the ceiling and barely suppresses the urge to groan out loud. Fucking. Nobles. Fucking Jarls and their stupid pride. Fucking _traditions_. “I imagine he’s expecting a dinner service,” she says, when she manages to tamp down her irritation enough to speak evenly, rather than making Yosef think she’s annoyed with him. “Can you round the kitchen staff together and let them know we’re to have a full-course dinner?”

“A full-course?” Yosef parrots, blinking. “Is—is that different from just a regular dinner?”

“Quite,” Serana says shortly. Yosef actually flinches when she speaks, and Eres frowns. Why the hell does he seem so afraid of her? She’s done nothing to him, Eres is certain. She’s definitely going to have to break him of that, and soon. “Usually several courses, one after the other. What is it, six? Seven?”

“ _Seven?_ ” Yosef gapes at them. “Who’s going to eat _seven courses?_ ”

“Fat nobles with nothing better to do than eat and order people around,” Eres grouses. “It’s wasteful, but it is expected when another visits to hold a proper meal.” She sighs. Especially at an actual keep, where a landed knight might have once had to receive his liege lord. In much the same manner as now, except for the fact that she’s _not_ a knight, and this steward is certainly not her damn lord. She imagines he thinks just having the Jarl’s authority behind him means he’s entitled the same level of respect and subservience. He’s going to get a rude awakening, on that front.

“Tell him we’ll receive him for dinner, and pull some of the staff out that can be spared to help in the kitchens.” Eres thinks of just how much this one night is going to drain at their stores, and just how likely it may be that this steward might choose to stay for several days worth of such hospitality. She imagines that’s the point - to drain her coffers and show her who’s actually in charge.

“He also wished for a private audience…” Yosef says reluctantly. “He’s waiting in the study for you.”

“Just assumed I had nothing else to do, did you?” Eres asks, and though her tone lacks any real bite, Yosef looks discomfited all the same.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I tried to tell him he could bring his concerns to us, instead, but he refused to speak with anyone but you.”

“I suppose Isran will have to wait, then,” Serana says beside her. Eres looks at her, and Serana merely looks back at her expectantly.

“Are you coming with me, then?”

“Might as well.” Serana shrugs. “Maybe I can make him uncomfortable.”

“Go on, Yosef,” she says to him, and she gives him a brief, one-armed hug just to make it clear that she’s not upset with him personally. He accepts it with a thin smile and bids the two of them farewell, hurrying down the hall ahead of them to carry out the tasks Eres had set for him. Eres turns back to Serana and says plainly, “Don’t you go threatening him, now.”

“I would never,” Serana drawls, the absolute furthest from sincere.

“I mean it.” Eres leads them towards the stairwell that goes down to the first floor, where her study is located. “If you threaten him, he’s just going to run back to cry to the Jarl about it, and I don’t feel like dealing with whatever escalation he’d jump to next.”

“What can he even do? This is your land isn’t it?”

“It’s my land, but it’s in _his_ Hold, unfortunately.” Eres sighs. “We might mostly be independent here, but we’re still under this thumb to an extent.”

“I don’t know why you don’t just secede then.”

“Sure, and spark another civil war?” Eres shakes her head. “There’s enough blood being shed around here without sending these people into war over my pride.” Much as she might have liked to tell Jarl Siddgeir where he could shove it, it’s not her that would be in the line of fire. Anything she said or did to piss off the Jarl would be something the _people_ would pay for, not her. She has to be diplomatic.

“Politics,” Serana mutters disgustedly, and Eres nods silently in agreement. 

The man who awaits her within her study is one that Eres has never seen before. She’s never so much as glimpsed the man, let alone met him personally, but he certainly has that rugged, dastardly look about him that she’d expect from a man serving under someone like Siddgeir. She enters her study to find him making a show of perusing her bookshelves, though she doubts he’s a man who spends much time reading. He looks like little more than a jumped-up thug playing at nobility, dressed in borrowed finery.

As if the sight of him making himself at home around _her_ things isn’t irritating enough, he’s brought nearly a dozen of his men into the room, all of them geared to the nines, in full armor with their weapons still very much on their person. Every one of them stare hard at her as she enters the room, as if they might cow her with their presences alone.

 _Of course_ , she thinks inwardly, restraining herself from openly rolling her eyes, _a display of power_. If he thinks she’s going to be knocked off balance by a few surly guards, he’s got another thing coming.

Besides, she thinks, wiping her expression carefully clean into practiced indifference—two can play that game, and she’s _very_ good at it. She knows what makes men like this tick. If her hunch about this man, posturing as he is, is right, she’s willing to bet her experience growing up under her father is going to be quite useful. Men who think of themselves as more powerful than they actually are are far too easy to read, and even easier to tip off balance.

“Afternoon.” She enters the room at a brisk, business-like walk, moving quickly and with assured purpose. “I’m told you requested an audience with me.”

The guards just stare at her. The Jarl’s man turns away from the bookshelves, looking her up and down with thinly veiled distaste. His eyes narrow upon seeing her face, and she can only imagine what he’s thinking.

“You?” He asks, straightening. His lip curls with distaste, and he looks down his rather long, prominent nose at her. “ _You_ are the lady of this Estate? An _elf_?”

She moves towards her desk, and sends only a tight, unamused smile in his direction. “I see that I cannot expect you to be well-informed on the state of affairs here, then, if that is news to you.” He scowls at her, and she hides her amusement as she moves behind her desk and, deceptively casually, sits down in the seat. She leans back in that seat, crossing one leg over the other, and knows that even something so simple as not standing at attention can be taken as an insult to men like him.

She is not surprised to see his glare intensify when she does not remain standing for the conversation.

Yes, she thinks. Two can play these little games of yours. It is entirely possible to disrespect a man without actually saying anything disrespectful. That she does not stand for him, does not approach to take his hand and introduce herself properly, that she simply sits and waits for him to speak, has a very clear meaning, and one she knows that he understands. She does not see him as an equal, no matter how many stone-faced guards he has in the room.

Serana, silently, stands beside the chair, leaning against the desk herself, and crosses her arms over her chest. What need has one for guards, when you have a vampire who seems more than willing to make a quick example of these men, should it come down to it?

Eres would never ask her to do such a thing, of course. She doesn’t believe in indiscriminate murder, no matter how much better the world might be without these fools in it. But, she knows that if any of them were to make a threat towards her, to make a move towards her, that they wouldn’t manage to get very far at all. Serana could snap the necks of every man in this room within a few seconds, if she wanted to. She would be too fast for them to follow, too strong for them to fight. And that’s if Serana didn’t bother to use her magic.

“Well?” She prompts, when the man doesn’t speak for several long moments. “What is it I can help you with, then?”

“It is not something I or my Jarl need _help_ with,” the man bites out, through clenched teeth. His eyes burn with resentment as he addresses her. Eres sees his eyes flicker around the room, likely searching for a seat of his own, but Eres also knows there is not one within viewing distance of her desk. He would have to find one in the little reading nooks and drag it out to sit on, and that would look rather silly. So he will stand, and be confronted with the fact that it is she who is in power here, not him. “You have chosen to ignore our warnings, and—”

She interrupts him. “I have received no warnings,” she says, far too casually. “I am away for most of the year, and I have left the care of my estate into the very capable hands of Sir Yosef and Lady Johanna,” she says, pointedly titling them so that he knows that she does not think of them as simple servants. “Did you bring this matter to their attention?”

His jaw tightens. “It is not something a couple of common rabble can handle, no matter how high a pedestal you put them on.”

She raises a brow at him. “And what, then, could be so important that you would not forward this matter to the Temple of Stendarr, perhaps? Or Fort Dawnguard? That _common rabble_ is more than capable of getting word to me when expedience is necessary, and yet I’ve heard nothing of the sort.” Yosef had mentioned Jarl Siddgeir’s irritation with her, of course, but that was nothing concrete. Nothing official. “Apparently, whatever issue you might have with me must not have been too important, if it could wait so long.”

“It is _very_ important,” the steward growls. “This very estate you think so highly of has not once been approved of by the Jarl, and nor has its continued expansion. You _have_ been warned about your continual disrespect for the laws of this hold and—”

“Which laws would that be?” Eres asks. “The ones where your Jarl turns a blind eye to the bandits extorting his own people for the sake of earning a bit of coin on the side, perhaps? Which law is that one?”

The man splutters at her, stammering, “T-That is not—That is rumo—”

“Never mind,” Eres says quickly, barreling past that to keep him off balance. “Which law is it, then, that states I cannot develop the land I rightfully own?” She asks next. “Your Jarl should have record of the deed within his archives, though I can certainly produced a certified copy of one if he’s misplaced it,” she and this steward both know he has not. “Fellburg has not expanded into territory that does not already belong to me, so tell me—which law is it I’m breaking, exactly?”

“As I said,” the man recovers at last, “the Jarl has not approved of the expansion and development of—”

Eres stands. The man blinks, owlishly, watching her with confusion as she struts purposefully to one of the many bookshelves within her study. On this one, she knows, there is a catalog of just such laws. They might be a bit outdated, given that the volumes had been there long before even Eres had moved into the Keep, but she hopes this steward is too stupid to realize it. The point is to bring them out, to force the man to identify exactly which ordinance she has broken.

This man, who she would bet is little more than a hired thug, probably doesn’t even know how to read. Let alone know how to use and search through a reference book.

She pulls one of the thicker tomes from the shelves, walks to him, and very pointedly shoves it into his chest with a bit more force than necessary.

“Go on,” she tells him. “Please, point out which ordinance states I must first seek the Jarl’s approval to build on my own lands.” She crosses her arms. “I’ll wait.”

Perhaps, Serana thinks, one day she’ll find something about Eres that she does _not_ find attractive.

Today, however, is apparently not that day. What does it say about her, that seeing Eres dress down a grown man as if he’s little more than a toddler playing at being a grown up is actually enthralling for her, just a little bit? It’s not that she’s normally fond of people who act like condescending assholes. Generally speaking, Serana actually rather hates people like that.

Somehow, though, Eres made the condescension and general assholery look… good. Serana is content just to stand there and watch, to just enjoy the show. She does love seeing a man get what he deserves, and that it’s Eres who’s doing it only makes the sight more appealing. She does, however, make a note not to genuinely piss her off in the future. She’s not sure if she’d be able to function having that ire aimed at her.

But then, she also can’t imagine she’d ever do anything to piss Eres off badly enough that she’d ever talk down to her in the way she does to the poor steward. To be honest, Serana hadn’t known Eres had it in her. She’d seen Eres be irritated, be blunt, even, but she’d never actually seen her just be outright _mean_. She is, with the steward, and even Serana feels a bit bad for him when she’s through.

She watches the man walk out, proverbial tail between his legs, and there’s a tiny—very tiny—part of her that feels a bit guilty for enjoying it. That tiny part of her is vastly overruled by the much larger part of her that thinks she’d rather like to see that again, maybe. If Eres ever decides to strip a man’s pride down to tatters again, Serana hopes she’ll be there to bear witness to it.

“He’s not going to be happy about that,” Serana says, when the door closes behind the Jarl’s steward and his men, leaving her and Eres alone within the room.

Eres sighs. “At this point, I’ve given up on making people happy,” she says simply. “I’d settle for just making them leave me alone.”

”And here you were, telling me not to be mean.”

Eres rolls her eyes at her with a shake of her head. “You get what you put out in the world,” she says simply, and that is that. 

She has a point, of course. He’d certainly deserved it, coming in here the way he had. 

Serana watches as Eres sags in her seat, massaging at her temples. Eres, though she has been awake for several days now, still tires easily. All this stress can’t be good for her, Serana is sure. Unfortunately, this may be one of very few things in this world that Serana can do nothing to help her with. She has her own experience with the politics of nobility and the like, being a Volkihar, but the politics of a court of vampires restricted to a single island in the middle of nowhere is quite a bit different from being the owner of a vast estate such as Fellburg. At this point, Serana’s not even sure it could be called just ‘an estate’. It might have been more accurate to call it a small fief.

Which, equally unfortunately, means that the politics surrounding Fellburg’s operation and day to day affairs is even more complicated than what Serana knows of. Breaking up a few squabbles between her father’s minions or sitting around as wall decoration while her father entertains visitors from other clans seems little more than child’s play in comparison to having to go toe to toe with a Jarl.

Serana, for example, had been quite liberal in telling her father’s men to fuck off whenever she felt like it, and spent much of her time in self-imposed solitude beside that, if she was not with her mother. Eres couldn’t really do that, here. Telling the Jarl to fuck off isn’t an option, as much as both of them would probably jump at the chance.

“Speaking of people leaving you alone,” Serana muses, “what about the Vigilants?”

Eres lets out a long groan. “I forgot to send word to Gwyneth. Fuck.” She pauses in her seat, then sighs. “I think my parchment’s upstairs.”

“You have parchment right in front of you.”

“Not _that_ parchment,” Eres sighs. “I have an enchanted one in my bag, somewhere. Wherever it is.”

Serana realizes it at the same time that Eres seems to.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eres curses, and she sinks ever lower in her seat. “I left the damn bag in the mansion.”

“The mansion, as in the one that burned down?” Serana asks.

“So I’m told.” Eres rubs at her temples again. “Guess I’m using regular parchment after all.” A flash of guilt crosses her face. “Gwyneth must be worried sick.”

“You never told me who Gwyneth was,” Serana says slowly. She doesn’t want to sound jealous. She’s not. She doesn’t want to sound jealous, because she isn’t. She just doesn’t know who this Gwyneth person is, is all.

“The bookkeeper back at the Temple.” Eres looks at her, and a consideration comes over her face. “I never actually told you about what happened with the Vigilants before I met you, did I?”

“No.” That comes out more tersely than Serana had meant it to. “Inigo told us a bit of it, when he came to us.” She does not say, ‘because you hadn’t told _me_ _’_ , but Eres does look a bit sheepish, and so maybe she gets the message anyways without her saying it out loud. Eres should have told her. _Why_ hadn’t she told her?

Something of her inner turmoil must have shown on her face, because Eres says, “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I just don’t like talking about it. I only told Inigo because I thought the mansion might have been connected to all of it, and he was dead set on going with me. I wanted him to know what I thought we might be getting into.” A sigh. “I was right, of course.”

Serana hums, low under her breath. “Are you going to tell me now, then?”

“I can,” Eres offers, and Serana will admit that she’s a bit surprised. Pleasantly, of course. She’d almost expected Eres to deflect again. “I really am not keeping things from you on purpose.” She shrugs. “They just don’t really come up easily in conversation and, well, given your history with him…” She looks away. “I didn’t want to bring up bad memories.”

Serana closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. She loves her, she does, but she’s going to kill her, at this rate. Why is it, every time something like this comes up, it’s because Eres is trying to protect her somehow? Not telling her she’s a Vigilant in the first place, not telling her about her first run in with Molag Bal, _walking into Coldharbour_. All of it, somehow, always comes back to Eres going out of her way just to keep Serana safe from anything that might upset or hurt her.

Does she _like_ thinking about Molag Bal? Of course she doesn’t. No one would, especially after what she’d been through, and she likes it even less so now, since Eres ended up in his realm. But that doesn’t mean she wants Eres to keep so many things bottled up inside her because she thinks _Serana_ will be bothered by it.

“I want to know,” she says, very carefully. She tries not to let it all come spilling out of her mouth at once. _I want to know everything about you. Even the uncomfortable things. Especially the uncomfortable things._ “If you’re willing to tell me.”

Eres shrugs. “What do you want to know?”

“How did you get tied up with the Vigilants in the first place?”

Eres leans back in her seat. She looks out, toward the study windows that span from ceiling to floor, overlooking the bailey just outside. It’s not an incredible view, but it is a passable one, at least.

“I’d had Fellburg for a few months by then,” she says. “My inheritance was running low, so I left Yosef and Johanna here to find work to send money back to them, help them keep the estate running smoothly. I took on a few odd jobs here and there, but the pay wasn’t really anything I could count on. A man approached me at the inn in Dawnstar, and he recruited me.” Eres’ expression darkens. “His name was Altano.”

“This is the same Altano that betrayed you?”

“He betrayed the Vigilants, not me, personally. He was Corrupted by Molag Bal, at some point, though I don’t know exactly when it happened. He could have been corrupted the whole time, or maybe it was just from touching the Mace…” Eres shakes her head. “I had a bad feeling about him from the start, but I kept dismissing it because I needed the money. We were chasing this summoner halfway across Skyrim the whole time, and I just went along with it. We finally caught up to her at Stendarr’s Beacon, but she’d hired a mercenary that had slaughtered almost everyone there. She had the Mace on her—one of Molag Bal’s artifacts—and Altano said he’d take it back with him when we put her down. He sent me off to handle something else in the meantime, and told me to meet him there when I was finished.”

Eres stands, then, no longer able to sit still. She walks to the window and leans against it, turning to look at Serana near the desk. “By the time I got to the Temple, he’d killed everyone there. Summoned a Dremora right in front of me, then hopped into some portal. I just jumped in after him without thinking.”

“That was incredibly dangerous,” Serana finds herself saying. A bit of a moot point, now, given how long ago it had been. “It could have closed on you.”

Eres smirks at that. “It closed on the Dremora coming behind me, so I got lucky.”

“I’ll say.” ‘Lucky’ was putting it lightly. Eres could have easily lost a limb. Or several. Or her life, for that matter.

“Altano was in the basement at the Beacon. He’d summoned Molag Bal—or an aspect of him, at least. A giant black dragon, with a horn on either side of his head.” Eres lifts her hands to demonstrate, and Serana hates that even in such a serious conversation, she finds it cute. She shouldn’t find it cute. This isn’t ‘cute’ subject matter. “He tossed Altano around like a ragdoll, then came after me.”

“How the hell did you survive?”

“Stendarr,” Eres shrugs. There’s a sadness that passes over her face, then, for just a moment. Serana doesn’t ask. Eres still wears the rusted Horn. She can guess. “And Meridia. They helped me fight him, then, to send him back to Oblivion.”

“So you’ve just always been extraordinary,” Serana muses. “Not everyone can say they’ve been blessed by the gods.”

Eres just shakes her head at that. “I don’t know that I’d call it a blessing. It’s why Molag Bal became so interested in me in the first place. After that, I came back to the Temple, and Gwyneth was there—she was the only survivor of Altano’s massacre. She asked me to be Keeper, and I just… I couldn’t leave her there by herself. So I accepted. A couple months after that, I got the job in Windhelm with the vampires, and went to the Dawnguard. You pretty much know the rest after that.”

But she doesn’t. None of them do. They knew what happened from _Inigo_ _’s_ point of view, but not hers.

“What about the mansion?”

Eres’ expression shutters near instantaneously. In that fraction of a second, Serana can practically see the walls slamming closed around her. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Eres…”

“Not now.” Eres’ tone is final. Serana looks at her—looks at the stiffness of her posture, at her closed expression and the hardness in her eyes, and she knows that there is nothing she could possibly do to make her talk about it now.

So Serana just nods. She will accept it, for now. She has no choice. But. “Will you tell me, one day?”

“Maybe,” Eres says. Serana frowns at her. “If I can.”

Alright, that’s fair enough. Serana has to admit that she’s not sure if she could have talked openly about her own experience with Molag Bal if Eres asked her about it. But Eres has always been polite enough not to ask. Perhaps Serana should follow her lead and do the same, stop prying and just wait for Eres to tell her when she’s able.

But then. Eres has never been particularly forthcoming on her own. Much of the things Serana has learned about her, she’s _had_ to ask for, and those that she hadn’t, Eres had shrugged away and simply said, ‘It hadn’t come up’. If Serana doesn’t bring things up herself, Eres will never talk about them.

Which reminds her.

“Eres.”

“Uh oh,” Eres mutters. “What is it now?”

“It’s nothing bad, really.” Well, she hopes it isn’t, anyways. “I was just wondering… How much do you remember about your mother?”

Eres blinks at her. Serana isn’t too surprised by how confused she seems to be at the topic change—she probably couldn’t find a connection between Molag Bal and the mansion and her mother. Probably didn’t understand how Serana had arrived at that question, of all things.

Because she doesn’t know. Eres doesn’t know that her mother is _here_. Right under her nose. Somehow. But even with the glamor, Serana wonders how that could even be possible. If Auria had left when Eres had been four, shouldn’t she have had _some_ memories of her, here and there?

“Not much,” Eres says, slowly. She looks at Serana with something a bit too much like suspicion. “Why?”

“Just wondering. Mirabelle said she knew her.” She says this as casually as she is able. “I just wanted to know if you remembered anything about her, is all.”

“Oh,” that seems to satisfy Eres’ suspicion. Serana is both thankful and irritated. Thankful, because it means Eres does not yet suspect that Serana is hiding something from her, and it had only been a brief moment of nagging suspicion. Irritated, because it means Serana will have to _keep_ hiding it from her, and Serana hates that more than anything.

“I really don’t remember that much about her,” Eres tells her.

“What _do_ you remember?”

“Hardly anything,” Eres answers, shrugging helplessly. “A white dress, maybe?” Her brows furrow. “I can remember something like that, but it’s just a dress. I can never see a face, or hear a voice, or anything really. It’s just this feeling that she used to wear a white dress.”

“How old were you when she left?”

“Four, maybe.” Okay, that added up. “I don’t remember it, really. My father told me when I was older.”

Serana’s brow furrows. “You don’t remember her leaving? Wouldn’t that be something that sticks a bit more?”

“You’d think,” Eres agrees. “But I don’t. He just used to talk about her.” Serana sees a flash of anger in her eyes, the way she presses her lips tightly together for just a moment. “He used to go on for hours about how horrible she was.”

“That’s awful.”

But Eres tilts her head, a strange, farawaylook upon her face. “I don’t know how, but I was always so sure he was lying.” Serana raises her brows at her. “He’d tell me these terrible things about her, and I remember I just—I could never believe them. I’d get all defensive over her like I actually knew her. You know, like, ‘she’s not like that’, and all—and he’d just go, ‘how would _you_ know?’” She frowns a bit. “I never actually had an answer for that.”

“Maybe,” Serana starts, cautious, “maybe there’s a part of you that remembers her, somewhere deep down.”

“Hm…” Eres considers, a distant look in her eyes like she’s trying to conjure up the memories she’s forgotten.

“Have you ever thought about looking for her?” _Dangerous territory,_ she tells herself. _If she puts out some sort of search for her mother, she_ _’s going to end up finding out she’s here in Fellburg, and then she’ll know you’ve been lying to her face the whole time._ She doesn’t even want to imagine how upset Eres might be with her if she found out that way. But she has to ask.

“By the time I was old enough to even want to do something like that, we didn’t have any money left to do it with.” Eres shrugs. “Besides. It’s been twenty years. If she’s still around,” Eres looks away from her, tensing. “If she’s not dead, then she might as well be.”

“ _Eres_ ,” Serana breathes, somewhere between horrified and concerned.

“She didn’t want me,” Eres says, her voice clipped and short. Serana can hardly even look her in the eyes for the pain she sees buried there. “That’s why she left.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

Eres shrugs again, with forced ease. “Why else would she leave me with him?”

Serana is not used to hearing Eres sound so bitter, so biting. It’s worse, knowing that there is something Serana can do, right here, right now, that could help to alleviate that pain. She could tell her. She could tell her, here and now, who Auria is. She could tell her that her mother’s here, and that she _did_ come back for her, and she could tell Eres how she’s seen how much Auria seems to love her.

But Eres is still so raw from Coldharbour, and the mansion too, and now this nonsense with the Jarl and just—there’s too much of it, right now. And that’s not even mentioning Eres’ continued nightmares, and the poor sleep she’s been getting, and how tired she gets so easily.

Serana presses her lips together, and she does not say a word. Instead, she crosses the room, and she pulls Eres into her arms, into a hug that she had not been asked for, because it is all that she can offer, right now. Eres mumbles something against her chest even as she hugs her back automatically, something that sounds suspiciously like, _‘what’s this for?’_ like she doesn’t know the general purpose of an embrace. Serana only squeezes her a bit tighter, and Eres sighs, and she tucks her head beneath Serana’s chin, and it is not the first time Serana is glad that she can’t blush. Eres feels _right_ , here. She should really do this more often.

Even if it does still sort of make her feel like jumping out of her skin, a bit, if she spends too much time thinking about it and not about the situation they’re in. 

_Not now_ , she tells herself. Not just for herself, but about Auria, too. Not now, when Eres is recovering. She has enough to worry about without the added emotional shattering that would come with realizing that her mother is very much alive and right under her nose and that _Serana hadn_ _’t told her._ Serana knows that this—this entire thing, this secret she’s holding onto for her sake—she knows that this is going to backfire. She already expects it. The moment Eres finds out, it’s not just going to be Auria she’ll be angry with.

She’ll be angry with Serana, too. Serana’s sure of that.

But Eres has spent so much of their time together, hiding things from her just to protect her. This time, it’s Serana who finds herself on the other end of that equation, carefully omitting the truth, weaving little white lies all around them so that Eres doesn’t realize it just yet, before it’s too soon for her to be able to handle it.

She’s hiding it from her to protect her, Serana tells herself. It’s for her own good.

In that moment, Serana is reminded sorely of her own mother, and the things she had done to protect Serana. Things Serana had resented her for. Things Serana still resents her for a bit, even now. And here she is, doing the very same thing. And yet, she doesn’t even feel like a hypocrite. She doesn’t feel like she’s betrayed herself.

Instead, there’s a part of her now that just… _understands_. She gets it. _She gets it_. She’d do anything to keep Eres safe and happy. Even if… Even if that means lying to her. Even if that means keeping her in the dark. Even if it means going against what Eres herself might have wanted, had she the choice of it.

It’s for the best, she tells herself, and she tries to make herself believe it. It’s just for the time being. Just for now. Just until she’s better. Soon, maybe, she’ll tell her. But, she just needs a little more time.

 _Just a while longer,_ she thinks. _Let me stay in this moment just a while longer._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> plot what plot but like. wholesome


	4. In Due Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the end note for some trivia.
> 
> Edited 4/24/20: Fixed a slight inconsistency.

ACT VI—INTERLUDE  
CHAPTER IV  
IN DUE COURSE

Eres wakes the next morning before the sun has even crested the horizon, to the sound of something loud and hard slapping against the floor. The sound of it jolts her from her sleep, and she scrambles up in bed, hand searching for the dagger she keeps beneath her pillow—when she sees Serana, standing near the reading nook of her bedroom, frozen in place. Or, rather, she sees Serana’s eyes, first, near glowing in the dark, until her own eyes adjust enough to see the outline of her silhouette in the shadows.

“Sorry,” Serana whispers, bending to pick the book she’d dropped from the floor. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Eres lets out the breath she’d held, relieved. A little annoyed, but mostly relieved. She turns her head, squinting towards the window. She can only see just the barest hints of a lightening of the sky near the horizon. The sun hasn’t even risen yet. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Serana repeats, her voice still barely above a whisper like she thinks speaking louder might wake her further. Eres is already awake. She’s not sure if she can get back to sleep after a scare like that one. “Go back to sleep.”

Eres waves her hand dismissively. “What are you reading?”

“Nothing, really,” Serana says, shrugging.

Eres leans over to the dresser beside her bed to light the flint for the oil lamp that rests there. Blessed, soft light fills the room, and she can finally see Serana’s features—rather than just a Serana-shaped shadow with red eyes. It’s still a little strange, even now, to see Serana dressed so casually without her armor on. She still wears it during the day, Eres knows, but she doesn’t bother to when she spends the nights with Eres in her room. Eres wonders if Serana thinks _she_ looks weird without armor, too.

“Just holding a book because you like the weight of it, then?” Eres asks, and she gets a good-natured eyeroll in return.

“No,” Serana waves the book in the air. She takes a few steps closer to the edge of the bed, but doesn’t sit. Eres wishes she wouldn’t be so—so… so formal, even now. Serana’s… If there’s anyone Eres wouldn’t mind sitting on her bed, it’s Serana.

If she’s honest, she vaguely remembers the feeling of being held by her in the night, back when she’d been drugged to hell and back, thanks to Auria. But only vaguely. She’s still not even completely certain that it’s a memory rather than just a nice dream she’d had, but she wouldn’t mind a repeat of that experience, regardless. She might be too embarrassed to ever admit it out loud, but she’d… she’d liked being held, for once. She spends so much time being the one everyone else relies on. It had been nice to feel like she could rely on Serana, instead. That she could be fragile with at least her, if no one else.

Would Serana think of her differently, if she knew how weak Eres feels on the inside sometimes? How much she wants to just crawl in a hole and disappear there for a while, sometimes? What would Serana think of her, if she knew all the things Eres keeps hidden behind lock and key?

She’s never shown anyone that side of her. But maybe—maybe Serana could be that person. Maybe. If she can get over herself long enough to actually _go for it_ , that is.

“I was reading up on the history of the Empire.”

Eres raises a brow at that. “A bit of light reading before bedtime?”

“Ha, ha,” Serana says, unimpressed with her humor. She still hovers at the end of the bed. Not sitting. Not leaving. Not moving. Just standing there.

“Would you sit down? You’re making me nervous, standing there.”

Serana’s brow furrows. “How am I making you nervous?”

Eres opens her mouth. Closes it. Frowns. “I don’t know. Because you’re standing and I’m not. I’m half asleep, stop asking me questions.” Stop asking her things she doesn’t know how to actually explain. It’s making her nervous because—because _Serana_ makes her nervous. In general. She didn’t used to, but now she does, because there’s this giant elephant in the room they still haven’t talked about and Eres isn’t sure what to do with it. But she might be less nervous if Serana is sitting down and looks a little less imposing. A little less larger than life. A little closer to her. “Sit down,” she says again, and this time Serana listens.

Serana sits, almost mechanically, at the very edge of the bed, book still in her hands.

Eres rolls her eyes. “I meant _up here_.” And she very pointedly pats the space next to her. Serana standing around made her nervous. Serana sitting at the edge of the bed like she’s afraid to put her weight on it just makes her feel _awkward_. It’s way too early in the morning for her to be feeling awkward. She has access to all of three emotions at this time of day, and awkwardness is not one of them.

“Oh,” Serana says, and she stands again. She looks at the space Eres pointed out, and hesitates.

“For fuck’s sake, Serana, it’s just a bed, not a coffin.” Serana looks like she might have flushed if she had been able to. “Actually,” Eres considers, mind wandering, “would a coffin be more comfortable for you?”

“Shut up,” Serana mutters, but she does finally actually climb onto the bed to join her. She sits exactly where Eres had patted the mattress, putting several inches between them. And staying on top of the covers, which makes them pull annoyingly around Eres’ legs. Eres tugs pointedly at the covers beneath Serana until the woman takes the hint and shuffles under them, too. “That’s a myth,” she says. “We don’t actually sleep in coffins.”

“Pretty sure I saw several at Volkihar.”

“My father thought he was _hilarious_ ,” Serana drawls, with a roll of her eyes. Eres finds her nose scrunching up in a half-grimace at the concept of Harkon with a sense of humor. It just didn't seem like he should have one. Even a terrible one. Perhaps _especially_ a terrible one. Harkon and "dad humor" didn't belong in the same sentence, let alone the same universe. “We don’t actually _need_ to sleep, so why would we bother with coffins? Beds are much more comfortable, if we’re going to actually lay down in them.”

“To be fair, I did find _you_ in a coffin.”

“Not by choice,” Serana reminds her. “You would think my mother could have entombed me with a nice bed.”

At that, Eres snorts. She’s so stupid, sometimes. “You said you don’t need to sleep, but can you?”

Serana shrugs. “We can if we want. It’s mostly a waste of time to us though. Sleeping or not sleeping doesn’t really do anything for us. If we’re tired, it usually just means we’re hungry.”

“So you just eat instead of sleeping.” Eres considers that, and she can’t imagine the idea of just… not sleeping, ever. “Sounds boring.”

“You spend a third of your life just laying around unconscious,” Serana retorts. “ _That_ ,” she says, “is boring.”

“I have nice dreams, sometimes.” They’re rare, but she does have them. And if she’s asleep, that means she doesn’t have to do any work, or meet with any annoying stewards, or take on any assignments, or fulfill any fated destinies or—whatever the hell else the waking world might ask of her. Sleeping is the one time of day she can almost be at peace. That is, when she doesn’t have nightmares, which have sadly become even more common than they had been before. She doesn’t remember them, but she wakes often feeling uneasy, feeling the tickle of fear at the back of her neck.

She can never remember what it is that scares her enough to wake her, only that it takes her sometimes up to hours to fall back asleep, with the prickle of anxiety still crawling beneath her skin, reminding her too much of that one long night in the mansion. It takes her more effort than it should for her not to retrieve Dawnbreaker just for the assurance of holding it in her hands and knowing that it isn't humming with the presence of a entity pacing the halls just outside her door. Having Serana in her room at night helps with that anxiety, a bit, but it's still _there_. 

“Oh?” Serana asks, raising a brow. Eres sees the glint in her eyes, and already knows what she’s going to ask next. “Do tell. What are these ‘nice’ dreams of yours about?”

Eres wrinkles her nose, trying to push down the heat that threatens to rise to her cheeks. “Not like _that_.”

“Sure, of course.” Serana still smirks at her. Knowingly. “That’s why you’re blushing.”

“I’m not blushing.” She isn’t. She _isn_ _’t_. And like she’d ever tell Serana about _those_ dreams. Not that she's even had many of those, but still. What a mortifying thought. “Why the hell were you reading a history textbook at four in the morning?”

“Nice segue,” Serana comments, but she answers anyways. “Isran told us a bit about Coldharbour. The people you met there—the Alessians, and all of that. I’d already been sealed away by the time they had their rebellion, so I’ve never really known much about them.” She shrugs helplessly. “I was bored, and I didn’t have much else to do.”

“You could have gone hunting.”

“I’m not hungry.” Serana doesn’t look it, either. Eres thinks she’s actually getting rather good at being able to tell if she is or not. She couldn't explain it if someone asked her to, but somehow she is able to look at her and _know_. “And I didn’t want to leave you.”

Eres allows herself to smile at that. “That’s sweet, but I don’t need to be watched all the time, you know. You can have time to yourself when I’m sleeping.”

Eres pointedly does not think about the worst nights, the nights when she wakes with the feeling of the walls closing in on her, of beings in the shadows looming over her bed. Of the paranoia that something might be out there that she can't see or hear, something stalking her in the night. On those nights, especially, Serana's presence in the room is often the only thing that allows her to eventually calm enough to sleep. If anything was out there, Serana would sense it long before she could--her mind took comfort in that, somehow, and slowly the anxiety would ebb away into mere memory. The nights when Serana isn't there are harder, and often Eres finds herself unable to sleep at all until the sun rises, flooding her room with light that chases away even the most stubborn of shadows. It's not Serana's responsibility to help her sleep. 

If she's honest with herself, she's not entirely convinced that Serana doesn't know, even without Eres telling her. Serana's never seemed the type to hover before, and Eres can't imagine she actually enjoys spending so much of her time on a semi-permanent vigil, watching over her constantly like she might disappear if she blinks at the wrong time. And Eres' nightmares are no secret, either. Perhaps Serana knows how comforting her presence is, somehow. Or perhaps she's just feeling a bit overprotective now, now that Eres is awake and alert and not out of her damned mind. Who knows. 

But Serana merely shrugs again, carelessly. Casually. “I don’t mind. It’s peaceful in here at night, and—” Serana closes her mouth, suddenly, an odd look crossing her face. “It’s just nice, I guess,” she says finally, but Eres gets the feeling that hadn’t been what she had originally meant to say.

“And?” Eres prompts.

Serana looks at her, brow furrowing. “And what?” She asks.

“You said, ‘and’,” Eres says. “And what?”

“Oh,” Serana blinks. She looks away. “Nothing really, just that it’s nice.” She shrugs.

It’s the third time Serana has shrugged in as many minutes, and something is definitely _off_ here, Eres knows it. She just doesn’t know what it is just yet. She’s going to figure it out, one way or another.

“Is this about earlier?”

“Earlier, as in…?”

“In the study, when I got all snippy over my mother,” Eres says quickly. “I wasn’t mad at you.”

This time when Serana looks at her, she looks genuinely baffled. “I know you’re not mad at me,” she says. Then she pauses, regarding her a bit more closely. “Unless you are, and I don’t know it…?”

“No, I’m not. You’re just acting…” ‘Weird’ seems a bit too close to an insult. “Different,” is what she settles on.

But weird is the best description of it, because Eres says that Serana is acting _different_ and then she just acts _weirder_. Serana actually stiffens next to her, looking very much like a guilty party. But guilty of _what_ , exactly? If Serana knows she’s acting weird, then there’s probably a reason for it. Which means that there’s something Eres doesn’t know.

“What is it?” She asks. “Is it something I did?”

“No, no,” Serana rushes to say. “It’s not because of that.”

Eres blinks. Then straightens, frowning. It’s not because of _that_? Then that meant it _was_ because of something else. “Serana—”

The door opens. Eres frowns, looking up, to see Auria waltzing into the room like she owns it. The woman stops, surprised, when she sees them.

“Oh,” she says, “I didn’t expect you to be awake already.” She gives Serana a suspicious look, like she expects Serana’s at fault for her lack of sleep.

“Do you always just come in here this early?” Perhaps Eres could have done better at hiding her annoyance, but Serana seems all too happy at the interruption. Probably because it means she won’t have to answer the questions Eres had been about to ask. She’s escaped the interrogation. For now. Not that Eres is happy about it.

Auria puts her hands on her hips. “And just who do you think gets your bath ready in the morning?” She asks, the very picture of indignant. She moves to the adjoining room with purpose, and moments later, Eres hears the sound of hot water running beyond the doorway. “You may as well get in now since you’re up and about,” she hears Auria say, as she returns to the room.

In a moment, Auria is at her bedside, throwing the sheets from her lap and tugging her insistently to her feet.

“Hey!” Eres slaps away the hands reaching for her night shirt, flushing. “I can undress myself, thanks, and I prefer not to strip in front of company.”

Auria raises a brow at that, ushering her onward. “Could have fooled me, my lady,” she says, and Eres slams the bathroom door closed behind her just for the sake of escaping _that_ comment. She’ll corner Serana later, when Auria isn’t making it a point to embarrass her.

_____________

By the time Eres has finished bathing and dressed for the day, Serana has made herself scarce. She’s not sure whether Serana actually had something to do, or if she’d simply decided to take the opportunity to flee from the conversation they’d been having. Either way, Eres is a little annoyed at the feeling that there’s something Serana is hiding from her, and the idea that she’d go as far as actively avoiding her to do it.

She also feels. Antsy. She doesn’t think she’s ever had _this_ much downtime before, and she’s well tired of sitting around the Keep doing nothing. She grabs her cloak, and heads down to the bailey just for the sake of getting outside. The fact that she managed to stumble upon Isran, setting training weapons back in their proper places, is a stroke of sudden luck. Eres can still see a few stragglers of the guards here and there, moving a bit more slowly than usual as they go to take up their usual posts. One of the men climbs the ladder of the watch tower so sluggishly that she fears he might just fall right off it.

“Taken to torturing my guards, have you?” Eres asks, and Isran glances up at her. The look he gives her is a strange one, one that she can’t quite read.

“Your men could use some shaping up. They’ve gotten soft.” Isran says after a moment. He drops a stack of wooden swords into a barrel to be used later. “Might as well make myself useful while I’m here.”

“Have you ever taken a day off before?”

At that, Isran snorts. “Look who’s talking,” he retorts, eying her critically. “Be honest,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he turns to face her, “how much is it killing you to sit around this keep all day?”

Eres makes a face. “More than you can imagine.” There’s still _so much_ she needs to do. “I need to go up to the Temple and find someone to take my place, I have to go and see the Greybeards again at some point, there’s still that lexicon I never brought back for Septimus…”

“Right,” Isran drawls. “Good luck with getting any of them to let you leave just yet. You’re still recovering.”

“I’m fine,” Eres says, and she mostly means it. She’s relatively fine. Finer than she had been, at least. That’s something, isn’t it? What is she supposed to do, sit around until the end of time? Eventually, something's got to give.

From the look Isran gives her, it’s apparent that he doesn’t feel the same way. “Just walking the halls tires you out. Do you really think going off and getting yourself into trouble is a good idea right now?”

“Now _you_ _’re_ lecturing me?” Eres sighs. She lifts herself to sit upon the table where Isran has stacked the shields. She doesn’t offer to help Isran clean up, and he doesn’t ask. She’s not sure he would have accepted the help even if she’d tried. “I get enough of that from Auria.”

Isran lets out a low hum, and he does not look at her when he does it. “She means well,” he says at last.

Eres’ eyes narrow. “How would you know?” She asks him, suspicious. “I didn’t even know you knew her.”

“I don’t. Just seen her around.”

“So how would you know she means well?”

Isran sends her a leveling look. “Considering she’s the one who’s been healing you since you got here…” He lets the sentence trail.

Her brow furrows. Healing? “She hasn’t been,” she says, slowly, because she’s no longer quite sure. There’s a lot she doesn’t remember, that’s true, but she thinks she would remember if she’d seen Auria performing magic. “She’s just a servant.” Sure, Auria had given her medicine here and there, but that's a lot different from being an actual healer. For all Eres knew, it could have been Valerica brewing those draughts. 

Isran actually chuckles at her. “That may be what she wants you to believe,” he says simply. “But she isn’t. She and Mirabelle are close. And I’d bet that woman is no lowly servant—not with that kind of magic. Who do you think set up the teleportation circle for us when we came here?”

Eres reels back, mind whirring. “I don’t remember a teleportation circle.” She remembered—she feels like she remembers going through the portal, and maybe seeing a glimpse of Serana, but then—nothing, nothing at all until she’d woken up just a few days ago aside from a few disjointed dreams and flashes of memory. But she definitely doesn’t remember teleporting anywhere. “ _Auria_ set up the circle?”

“That’s what I was told.”

Eres tries to reconcile that with the image she has of the handmaiden, and finds that she can’t. Teleportation circles aren’t exactly common knowledge. Having the skill and knowledge and _power_ required to set up something like that, even just a receiver, is far more than what even an average mage could be capable of. Mirabelle certainly she could understand. She is a Master Wizard at the College, after all, and so Eres _expects_ her to be that strong.

But a handmaiden? Someone who spends most of the day just shadowing Eres in case she needs something? Running her bath water? Cleaning her room and sweeping up the halls of the second floor? Why the hell would a mage _that_ powerful be pretending to be a handmaiden at all? And where would Mirabelle have even—

Mirabelle.

Eres’ mind screeches to a halt.

 _Mirabelle_.

_“Your mother certainly never had such limitations.”_

_“You show a striking resemblance to her in more ways than one.”_

No. No, it couldn’t—it couldn’t be that.

Eres hops off the table, shaking her head vigorously. Isran looks up at her, frowning. “Something wrong?”

“I… just had a weird thought, is all.”

Isran straightens. His expressions twists a bit uncomfortably. “Do you… want to talk about it?”

She stares at him for a moment. The discomfort on his face almost makes her laugh. “You don’t have to force it, Isran.”

Isran grimaces, muttering, “I don’t know this works anymore…” He reaches a hand up, running it over his bare skull with a sigh, looking away from her. “I may not be able to offer advice for you, but I can listen, at least.”

Eres looks at him, a bit more closely. How odd. Why was everyone acting so damn _weird_ today? “Are you okay?” She asks him. “You’re acting… softer than usual,” she settles on.

Isran does scowl then, looking a bit more like the man she knows. “How much do you remember from Coldharbour?” He asks.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Isran only raises a pointed brow at her, waiting for her answer. Eres sighs. “Not much, still," she answers, as irritated with herself as anything. She doesn't know if she _should_ want to remember, but she does. She hates having these gaps in her memory, these blank spots and-and time jumps with chunks of just absolute _nothing_ in between. She's not thrilled at the idea of remembering more things to have haunting her dreams at night, but somehow the not knowing is worse. "Bits and pieces, here and there. Why?” It’s—it’s _strange_ , the look that comes over his face. It looks almost like, like remorse, maybe? Or something like it. “Am I forgetting something important…?”

“It’s nothing,” he waves a hand dismissively, shaking his head. “Must be getting sentimental in my old age.”

“You’re not that old,” she says automatically, but her brain works in overtime. What is she forgetting about Coldharbour that could make Isran act so strangely? Whatever it had been, it must have been before she’d come back to her senses. She doesn’t remember much of anything besides the Dreams, before Kahkaankrein. “Was it before the dragon?”

“It was,” Isran confirms. “But don’t worry about it. It’s nothing important. Now what’s this other thing you’re so bothered about?”

“Oh,” Eres frowns. “I’ll tell you if you tell me.” His eyes narrow at her. “It’s a fair trade.”

“Fine,” he agrees. “Now talk.”

“Just—I just have this weird feeling about Auria, suddenly,” she says haltingly, and she feels stupid even saying it loud. It’s such a ridiculous theory. Surely she’d have _known_ , right? Surely she’d have been able to tell if that was the case, right? After all the time Auria spent around her?

“Go on…”

“It’s—I never knew she was a mage, before you said she’d made the circle,” Eres tells him. “She never mentioned anything about it to me, and she’s never used magic in front of me.” Isran waits, patiently, for her to get to the point. “I just wondered, why would a mage powerful enough to be able to make a Circle like that here be masquerading as a servant?”

Isran’s brow furrows, then, and she sees the same suspicion in his eyes that she feels inside her.

“She doesn’t do anything besides taking care of me and cleaning on the second floor, but—even _I_ couldn’t make a circle like that if I tried. I wouldn’t even know where to start, and I don’t even think I’d have enough mana to power it. _Mirabelle_ being able to makes sense—she’s a Master Wizard, that kind of thing is probably just an every day thing for her. But for most of us, it’s just—it’s so far beyond anything we can do. _And_ , she knows Mirabelle - she said she was a good friend of hers.”

“Perhaps she was in trouble somewhere, and Mirabelle sent her here to hide away, knowing she would be safe here.”

Eres doesn’t know why, but she finds herself doubting that theory. “Maybe,” she concedes, “but Mirabelle said…” This is going to sound ridiculous, she knows it. “Mirabelle said she knew my mother,” she says at last. “And that she’d been a mage.”

For a long time, Isran just stares back at her. She can’t even tell what he’s thinking.

“I know it’s probably just a coincidence.” Coincidence. Wishful thinking. Something like that. It was stupid. Even if it _was_ true, what the hell is she supposed to do with that? How would she even _act_?

“No,” Isran says, very slowly. “You have a point.”

“…I do?”

He nods. “It does seem suspicious, if you add everything together.” His brow creases. “She _was_ rather insistent that she attend to you personally, rather than having a rotating shift of nurses for you…”

“You’re supposed to be telling me I’m being ridiculous.” Nope, no. She doesn’t want to even consider this a possibility. She’d have _known_. “She doesn’t even look like me.”

Isran eyes her thoughtfully, though, not dissuaded in the slightest. “She _is_ Bosmer,” he says. “And, as you said, she is a mage. They’re more than able to change their appearances at will, if they want to. Hasn’t Serana done the same before, more than once?”

It’s true. Gods damn it, it’s _true_. Glamors aren’t even that difficult for a mage as strong as Serana, or Mirabelle… or possibly, Auria. Probably Auria.

But. “There are plenty of Bosmer around,” she says. She doesn’t know who she’s trying to convince more - herself or Isran. Going to Isran with a conspiracy theory probably isn't the brightest thing she's ever done. If there's any man in the world who would likely take any reason to be suspicious of just about anything, it would be him. His own tendency to doubt and question everything is just feeding into her own paranoia. “Doesn’t mean she’s—” she closes her mouth. She can’t even say it out loud.

 _Doesn_ _’t mean she’s my mother._

Her mother? _Here_? Was it possible? Auria _did_ seem rather maternal at times, but then, Johanna seemed that way too, and Valerica did when she’s with Serana, and—lots of women have maternal instincts and treat younger people that way. Eres doesn’t know how old Auria might be, given how much more slowly Bosmer age than humans, but she’s always gotten the sense that she’s at least around Mirabelle’s age. Which would put her… around, what? Forty, maybe? Maybe mid-forties?

Which meant… _If_ it was possible… Twenty years ago, Auria would have been in her twenties, plenty old enough to have a child. Plenty old enough to have left Valenwood behind, and—and Auria… Auria’s from Valenwood. Eres knows that much, because she’s mentioned it. But plenty of Bosmer come from Valenwood, it doesn’t mean that—

“Eres,” Isran says. “Don’t drive yourself crazy thinking about it. You can always just ask, if you want to know.”

“Oh, certainly,” she says, “I can walk right up and ask her, ‘hey, I know this sounds a bit odd, but is there any chance you’re my long lost mother who abandoned me as a child?’” Isran winces, which is exactly the reaction she’d expected. Perhaps the exact reaction she’d been aiming for.

But… She has to admit, there’s a lot. A _lot._ A lot that is adding up, and a lot that isn’t. And she almost doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to seek out the truth, but she has to. She has to, or the wondering is going to drive her mad.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where Mirabelle is?”

Isran gives her a measuring look. “Going to interrogate her next, are you?”

“Maybe.” She is not even remotely ashamed of that. “Where is she?”

“Last I saw, she’s been helping Miren with the gifted kids around this time of day. She takes them out of the study up to the east tower.”

Eres wastes no time. She spins on her heel, marching back into the keep, and she does not even think to wish Isran farewell as she goes. She forgets entirely that he has his own secrets to share. 

The East tower is just on the opposite side of the Keep from the tower Yosef and Johanna had once hidden away in with their children, so long ago. The last time Eres had been at Fellburg, she had never bothered to go off exploring to find what new places the household staff had unearthed, but the ascension to the East Tower is much less of a journey than approaching her own tower rooms had once been, back before the Keep had been repaired and set to proper order.

Even as she climbs the spiral stairwell, she can sense the buzz of magical energy in the air, gaining strength as she climbs higher. Her own magic reacts beneath her skin, raising the fine little hairs on her arms and back of her neck. Whatever Mirabelle is doing up here, there is a _lot_ of magic involved in it.

Eres does not know what she had expected to find when she opened the door, but the sight of Mirabelle demonstrating a particularly powerful warding spell for a gaggle of children—Julia included, who grins when she sees Eres—had not been it. Even worse, Mirabelle is not alone in her instruction. Auria is there, bending close over a student who very carefully draws upon a yellowed piece of parchment on his desk, pointing out his mistakes.

Eres pauses, looking at her. She looks at her, from head to toe, and she still cannot see anything that might have indicated that Auria could be her—that she might be right, about all this. Maybe she’s just being paranoid, after all.

“Eres?” Mirabelle asks, dropping the ward. She regards her with open curiosity. “I was not expecting you to join us.”

“I’m not,” she says quickly. “I need to speak with you.” She must say it now, before she loses her courage. Before she convinces herself not to bother asking. “In private.”

Mirabelle and Auria exchange a look. Eres’ brow furrows when she sees it, because she can’t for the life of her tell what it means, and it only adds fuel to the fire simmering beneath her skin.

“I am in the middle of a lesson,” Mirabelle says carefully, when she turns back to her. “But we can speak once we are done here. It shan’t take long.” Mirabelle beckons her into the room. “Perhaps you might like to join us? I did wish to examine your… difficulties that you mentioned before.”

She thinks about it. Auria stands just beside that young boy, looking between Eres and Mirabelle, but there’s nothing overtly suspicious about her. She’s just standing there. Listening. Watching. Anyone would be, in her position, Eres thinks. Eres _had_ made it all sound rather dramatic, who wouldn’t be curious? It doesn’t mean anything.

 _It doesn_ _’t mean anything,_ she tells herself. _It doesn_ _’t._

“Fine, I guess.” She feels anxious, anyways. Maybe doing something besides fidgeting would help her calm down a bit. Not that she’s all that thrilled about giving herself a migraine, but she already seems to be headed for a rather terrible day as it is, so she may as well go the extra mile. “What do you want me to do?”

“Auria,” Mirabelle calls. “Please, could you continue watching over them for the time being?”

“Of course,” Auria says, and she moves closer to the center of the room, where she can watch all of the kids at once. She gives Mirabelle a lingering look, all the same, and Eres hates that she’s reading controversy in every single action, every look, every breath. She’d thought she’d be done with the paranoia, now, after Coldharbour was over.

“Come,” Mirabelle beckons her to a corner, and when Eres follows her, the woman reaches out and takes Eres’ hands into her own. When Eres nearly pulls them back on pure instinct, Mirabelle pointedly holds them in place. “I need to be able to feel how you shape the magic—to see if something is off in your technique.”

Eres scowls at her. She’d been taught by some of the best tutors in the capital. She _knows_ how to shape magic. It just—it just doesn’t feel all that great to do it, is all. “Which spell?”

“Any spell,” Mirabelle tells her. “Whichever is most comfortable.”

Eres sighs. She stares at her hand, concentrating, until she feels the familiar ache beginning to build in her temple, until she sees the tiny little flame sprout to life in the palm of her hand. As it grows, so too does the lancing pain in her skull.

“Hmmm…” Mirabelle says, and Eres snuffs it out before the headache can ramp up into something worse. “Interesting,” she murmurs. “Very interesting.”

“ _What_ is interesting?” Eres asks her, terse for all the wrong reasons. “I know how to make a fire.”

“Oh, yes,” Mirabelle drops Eres hands, and looks at her with something akin to scientific curiosity. It makes Eres feel rather like a specimen. “You have excellent command over the school itself, I expect. You had no trouble with forming the flame and maintaining it, once it was made, despite the side effects you complained of. Do you still feel them now?” Eres nods. “ _Very_ interesting.”

“Why is that interesting?”

“Well,” Mirabelle says, but then she closes her mouth. Her brow furrows, and she frowns a bit. “Allow me some time to organize my thoughts on the matter, do some research. I shall have a response for you shortly, I expect. Then, you and I can get to work on breaking you of this limitation of yours. I imagine you could be quite the powerful mage if you could use such magic without injuring yourself in the process.” Eres narrows her eyes at her, certain more than ever that the woman is hiding something. Mirabelle _knows_ something about the cause of her limitations, she's sure of it. And she's being dodgy about it for some reason, which only makes Eres more suspicious than before. Just how much is Mirabelle hiding from her? Just how much is _everyone_ hiding from her?

A bell rings, somewhere in the distance. As one, the kids begin to clamber out of their seats and collect their things. Mirabelle calls after them, instructing them to continue their solitary practice, and read over the next chapter in whichever tome they’re studying from. Auria lingers behind, cleaning up after them.

Eres watches her. She certainly moves enough like a houseservant, she thinks, even if there is a certain lightness to her step—that could just be her elven blood shining through. Bosmer tended to be quite graceful by nature. It didn’t mean anything. But Eres still watches her, and she still waits as Auria finishes tidying the room. Auria glances at Eres for just the breath of a moment, looks to Mirabelle, and dips in a short bow towards the two of them.

“My lady,” Auria says simply, and she, too, is gone from the room, the door closing solidly behind her.

Mirabelle waits. “You have questions,” she says simply, in the silence. “I imagine this is about your mother?” As ever, Mirabelle is not the type to beat around the bush. Straight to business.

Eres inhales. She tries to steady the sudden racing of her heart. It’s fine. This is fine. She’s going to ask Mirabelle, and Mirabelle will tell her, and it’ll be obvious that it _isn_ _’t_ Auria, and everything will be fine. Mirabelle will be able to prove that Eres is just losing her mind, a little. That's fine. She can deal with that. There's ways to deal with that. One didn't go to Coldharbour and make it out completely unscathed, after all. It's almost to be expected there'd be some damages, somewhere. She'd be fine, in time. 

“It is,” Eres confirms. “I never asked what you knew of her.”

“You were quite irate with me when last we met,” Mirabelle muses, walking towards her desk. She gestures at the chair just across from it, and Eres sinks stiffly into it. “I admit, I may have pushed you too hard, then.”

“It’s fine.” Eres doesn’t even remember why she’d been that upset with her. What had they even argued about, in the first place? It all seems so petty, now, after everything that’s happened recently.

“Well?” Mirabelle prompts. “What is it you wish to know?”

Eres turns her eyes towards the window on the one wall. She can see nothing but the cloudy sky beyond it, the tower being so high up, but it is somehow better than looking at Mirabelle herself.

“You said you knew her," Eres starts. "My mother," she clarifies, though it seems unnecessary. Who else could she have been talking about?

But Mirabelle only nods. “I did," she confirms.

“How?”

“She is an old friend of mine,” Mirabelle says. _Is_ , Eres notices. Not _was_. “We met—goodness, it must have been nearly twenty five years ago, now. She visited the College, briefly, when I was yet a student.”

Eres nods, more to herself than Mirabelle. So far, nothing groundbreaking. Perfectly logical timeline. It's fine. “Where was she from?”

“Valenwood.” Mirabelle pauses. Frowns. Her brow furrows a bit. “I assumed you knew as much.”

She did. Or, well. Her father had told her as much, but she had never been sure how much of what he told her was truth, and how much he had fabricated. “Where in Valenwood?”

“Falinesti.” The city supposedly set in the trees, the ones that migrated with the seasons. That—that kind of made sense, she supposes.

“Why did she come to Skyrim?”

“No idea.” Eres looks at Mirabelle to see her shrug helplessly. “I assume she wished to see the world. It was never something we spoke of." When Eres looks at her doubtfully, Mirabelle's lips curl into a wry smirk. "Believe it or not, young one, I don't make the habit of interrogating my friends. She and I were close, yes, but there were plenty of things we didn't know about each other. She knows as little of my past as I know of hers, I am sure." 

Alright, that's fair enough, she supposes. There are plenty of things that Serana doesn't know about her, and vice versa. That makes sense.

Changing direction, Eres asks, “Did you know my father?”

“No,” Mirabelle says shortly, but the tone of her voice suggests otherwise. “But I have heard plenty of him.” Well, that explains that. Anyone who learned about her father seemed to learn quickly to dislike him. Not that she can blame them. 

“From her?”

“Yes,” Mirabelle answers. “She came to me, after—”

Eres’ jaw tightens, then. She feels suddenly cold. “After she left me.”

Mirabelle closes her eyes, and sighs. “Yes,” she says softly, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. “She had nowhere else to go. No one else she knew in Skyrim that she could turn to. She asked for my help.”

“With?”

“With hiding,” Mirabelle answers. “She needed to leave Skyrim.”

Her chest feels heavy. Her throat feels too tight. Too tight to speak through, but she does. “She didn’t ask you to help her get me?”

Mirabelle looks at her, and Eres hates to see the pity in her eyes. “She did not,” Mirabelle confirms. Then, “She _could_ not.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “What do you mean, she couldn’t?”

“Your mother’s flight was not…” Mirabelle sighs, leaning back in her chair. She looks suddenly very tired. “It was not one taken of free will. I asked after you at the time, as I did not see any child with her, and I knew of her to have one. She was—” Mirabelle’s eyes turn distant, a bit pained. “She was inconsolable,” she says quietly, her voice little more than a hushed whisper. “Your mother has always been Bosmer through and through. There is nothing they value as much as daughters.”

“Your mother would not have left you on her own volition. She told me she had brought you with her in her escape, but—” Mirabelle shakes her head. “Your father had suspected she would try to leave him. He had bribed several officers of the Legion to keep a lookout for her—or, that is what your mother suspected, after the fact. She was caught with you upon the lake Rumare—the Legion usually does not bother to patrol the waters there, given how high the cliffs are. I’m sure you remember them.”

Eres does. The city is built so that Lake Rumare forms a natural moat beneath it. Even in the lowest areas, the climb from the shores of Lake Rumare into the city would mean scaling several hundred feet worth of sheer cliffs, and that was not even mentioning the city walls themselves. More people were likely to drown in the lake than use it to smuggle themselves into the city.

“I assume someone within the house staff knew of your mother’s plan, and informed your father—who informed the guard. When she was caught, they took you from her, and she was exiled.” Mirabelle meets her gaze, and holds it. “According to her, the Legion claimed they would kill you were she ever to return.”

Kill _her_?

“My father was a lot of things, but a murderer wasn’t one of them.” _It_ _’s a lie_ , Eres thinks, over and over. It has to be a lie. Her father—he hadn’t been a great man by any stretch of the imagination, but he had never been murderous. In his final years, even, he had mellowed, and he had been quite open about how much he loved her, and that _she_ was the only worthwhile thing he had left in the world. It had been one of the reasons she had been so torn over his death—she had known he loved her, and she still could not bring herself to grieve him. She had felt like a terrible daughter.

“Perhaps not,” Mirabelle admits. “But it is true that he was manipulative to a fault. And he, more than anyone, knew how much your mother loved you. If there was any one thing that could have dissuaded your mother from doing what he did not wish her to do—it would be threatening your safety. And, at the time, your father had several influential members of the Legion in his pocket. She had no avenues with which to fight against it. She could not take the risk of losing you for her own selfishness.”

“And so she came to you.”

Mirabelle nods. “And so she came to me,” she confirms. “Believe it or not, border security then had been even more strict than it is now, though it’s certainly starting to catch up. At the time, all border crossers were tested for magical workings upon them—such as, for example, a glamor that might hide one’s appearance. Your mother could not risk being sighted at the border, should your father have used that as an excuse to hurt you. So she came to me, and I provided her with transport back to Valenwood.”

“And then?” Eres asks. “What happened after that?”

Mirabelle’s brows pull together. “Once she was in Valenwood, she and I did not remain in contact much of the time. Every so often I would check in with her to make sure she was doing well, but aside from that, I have no information on what she was doing there.”

“Not that,” Eres swallows. “Have you seen her since then? Or spoken with her, recently? Do you know where she is?”

For a long time, Mirabelle watches her. There is something measuring about the look she gives Eres, something calculating. “These questions,” she says slowly, “are rather pointed, Eres. If there is something else you wish to know, it is best to simply ask directly.”

Eres stands. She walks to the window. She walks back. And then back to the window again. Mirabelle watches her, silent the entire time. Waiting. Patient.

Okay. Okay, she’s just—she’s just going to ask. It’s a yes or no question, and then that’s that. That’s all there is to it. She just. She just has to ask the question.

“Is it—” She swallows, clears her throat, blinks past the sudden burning behind her eyes. She’s not going to cry. She’s not going to cry about this. She’s _not._

 _“_ Is it her?”

Mirabelle just looks at her. “You will have to be more specific. _Her_ , who?”

“Auria.” The name comes out as hardly more than a whisper, and so Eres says it again. “Auria,” she repeats, stronger this time. “Is it her?”

Mirabelle does not react at all, to that, and somehow that is more damning than if she had. “What makes you believe that it is?”

“Just—” Breathe. In. Out. Breathe in. Breathe out. “Just _tell me_ if it’s her or not. I want the truth.”

A beat. Two.

“Yes—”

Eres is out the door and running before Mirabelle can say anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now with the "official" introduction of Auria as Eres' mother, there will start to be hints and implications towards the rewritten Bosmer culture for this particular fic. If you are expecting Bosmer in this fic to line up with ES lore (namely, the Green Pact, the Wild Hunt etc), then I'm afraid you really need to wipe the slate clean. Pretty much the only thing that remains from original ES lore in regards to the Bosmer of this fic is Valenwood's geography/migratory tree thing and the fact they don't wear proper shoes (though that seems especially common with today's elves, DA elves are the same way). Pretty much everything else has been reworked. 
> 
> The Bosmer in Vigilance take inspiration from numerous sources, including the Dalish, LOTR (at least in regards to the trees, I've never actually read the series but I know Ents are a thing), and a LOT of my own spin on things. I'll try to remember to explain things as they come up in the story if it's not too spoilery. For example:
> 
> The Song: This has been mentioned/alluded to a few times by now, both by Eres herself and by Auria. Though something similar is present in ES lore, the "Song" in terms of Bosmer in Vigilance refers to a dual concept: both the "Song" in terms of the Song of the Earth (or their connection with nature, which will be explained more later on) and the Song as in their actual religious/cultural practices. When Auria refers to vampires as "an insult to the Song", she is saying that vampires are, essentially, a crime against nature. Bosmer in this story believe in the concept of reincarnation and a "cycle" of life and death that is never ending - you live, you die, and you are reborn, repeat ad infinitum. The existence of vampires or other undead therefore are considered abominations in their culture as they break the sacred cycle of life, death, and reincarnation, which creates an imbalance (in their minds). 
> 
> There will likely be more mentions or references to Bosmer lore in future chapters, but for the most part it will remain in the background. However, there may be an act later on in the series that may have a bit more to do with it... :)


	5. Superior Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you squint you can just barely see a plot now. Maybe.

ACT VI  
CHAPTER V  
SUPERIOR TASTE

The sound of the door slamming behind her is a welcome one. Somehow, it reflects the state of her emotions. Eres very nearly contemplates opening it a second time just to slam it shut again, if only to make herself feel better, to calm the raging tempest beneath her skin, but instead she turns away from that door and paces the length of her room. She makes several brisk trips back and forth across it before she even registers the presence of Serana there, sitting in the little reading nook, watching her go back and forth with concern etched over her features.

Eres stops. Serana looks at her.

“Are you okay?” Serana asks her, almost hesitantly. She stands, approaching her, and soon she is just in front of Eres, looking down at her, hands reaching to clasp at her arms.

Were it anyone else, that touch might have just made her more anxious, more upset, more angry. But it’s Serana, and the touch is grounding, and it helps to douse the flames just the slightest—but not enough that she still doesn’t wish she could set something on fire. Or break something. Several somethings, maybe.

Who else knew? _Who else knew_ that Auria was her mother, this whole time, and hadn’t said anything about it. Had _Isran_ known, and just acted like he hadn’t? Had he led her to Mirabelle because he knew that Mirabelle would tell her? Did _everyone_ know except her?

“No,” she answers, and perhaps her voice is a bit too cutting, because Serana actually reels back a little, eyes widening. “I—” she starts, and somehow she finds herself wanting to laugh. “Do you know what I just found out?”

The look that passes over Serana’s face gives her pause. It is something of hesitance, of uncertainty, of—of dread, maybe, like Serana already knows what she’s going to say. Suddenly, her touch doesn’t feel very comforting at all. Eres pushes her hands away from her, glares up at her, and Serana doesn’t even fight her. Doesn’t even seem surprised that she would be upset.

She knows.

“You _knew_ ,” Eres hisses, past the anger that threatens to choke her. Past the hurt, past the—the ache of it, past the feeling that makes it seem like someone’s sat on her chest, like she’s been crushed. “ _You **knew**._ _”_

“Eres—”

“You _knew_ she was my mother.” Eres doesn’t tell her _who._ She doesn’t tell her who, because she doesn’t have to, because Serana knows _exactly_ what she’s talking about. Serana had _known_ , and she hadn’t told her, and after all the things Eres had told her about her mother, about all the things she’d said about how much she’d wondered about her, about how much it had _bothered_ her to have never known what happened to her.

Serana had known how much Eres had wanted to know her mother, had wanted to know what had happened to her. She had known how close it was to Eres’ heart. She had _known_ that, and she had _known_ that her mother had been right there in front of her, and she’d _never told her_.

“This is what you were hiding from me, wasn’t it?” Serana opens her mouth to respond, but Eres doesn’t want to hear it. “This is why you’ve been acting so weird around me lately. You knew she was my mother and you never said anything—why the _fuck_ would you hide this from me?! _Knowing_ how much it meant to me?”

“Eres, listen—” Serana reaches for her again, but Eres doesn’t want to be touched. Especially not by her, not now. “I wasn’t—it wasn’t that I didn’t want to tell you, you had just woken up and you already were so—”

“ _Bullshit_.” That’s _bullshit_ and they both know it. “Did you think I couldn’t handle it? Just how fragile do you think I am, Serana? After everything I’ve been through, you think _that_ would have been the last straw? You think you couldn’t just have told me that my mother was here, right under my nose the _entire_ time? You think _that_ could have broken me, when Molag _fucking_ Bal _couldn_ _’t_?”

“Eres, _please_. Just listen to me. It was—”

Eres takes a step back, and points a finger at her, and she must restrain everything in her to keep herself from shaking as she does it. The fury is there, boiling beneath her skin, making her blood burn hot in her veins, making her muscles tense and seize up and tremble against her will. Her heart pounds against her ribs, pulse slamming at the side of her neck, and she can’t even _think_ for how angry she is.

“If you say it’s for my own good I _swear_ ,” she manages, “I swear I will—” she can’t even put it into words. She can’t even _settle_ on a threat.

But Serana closes her mouth, obediently. Eres turns away from her, unable to even look at her anymore.

Lies. _So many lies_ , right to her face, and up until just that morning she hadn’t even had the slightest suspicion that Serana had been hiding something from her.

“How long.” Eres braces her hands on her hips, and she focuses on her breath, and she tries not to _hate_ her for this. She tries not to let this poison her feelings for Serana but she can’t see past it, not right now, not for a while, maybe, she just _can_ _’t_. She takes in a long, slow breath, and she counts to ten.

 _Calm_ , she tells herself. She has to calm down. She has to let the boiling simmer to something more manageable. Something she’s less likely to snap over, something that she can breathe through, something that’s not going to make her say something she’ll regret and not be able to make up for. _She_ _’s_ in control of her temper, not the other way around.

It’s just been a long time since she’s felt this angry, and she hates how dark it feels, roiling inside her. This isn’t her. This is what she got from her father, maybe, but it isn’t her. She’s not him. She doesn’t take her feelings out on other people. She’s a grown ass woman, she’s not a toddler, and she can control herself. She just. Has to breathe through it. She has to remind herself of who she doesn’t want to be.

When Eres finally does turn back to look at Serana, it is only once she has managed to put a lid on that anger, once she has managed to enclose it tightly within a little box and shove it deep, deep down beneath the surface. Later, she tells herself. She’ll deal with it later. Wouldn’t the Greybeards be so proud of her, filing away things like this to fuel her power as Dragonborn? At least it could be useful for something other than making her feel sick.

“How long did you know.” Her voice sounds flat, utterly lacking in any emotion even to herself. Good. That’s—it’s not ideal, maybe, but it’s better. She’s not her father. She’s not going to yell and scream just because she’s angry. She’s better than that. She’s not him. _She_ _’s not him_. “How long have you been lying to me?”

“I haven’t lied to you.” Serana says quickly. “Not once. I didn’t tell you, but I didn’t lie to you.”

“Fine,” Eres takes another careful, steadying breath. “How long have you been omitting the truth?”

Serana swallows. Eres can see the pleading in her eyes. “Almost two weeks.”

The bark of a disbelieving laugh escapes her before she can help it. “Two _weeks_ , Serana?”

“You only just woke up a few days ago,” Serana reminds her. “And you still aren’t back to a hundred percent. I just wanted you to be _stable_ , first, and then… I—she asked me not to tell you.”

Eres’ eyes narrow. “And you _listened_?”

“She wanted to tell you herself, when the time came. It just—it just wasn’t the right time yet, but…”

“And you listened to her, over what you think I would have wanted? Do you know me at all?”

Something like anger flashes in Serana’s eyes, then, and her brow furrows. “No,” Serana snaps back at her, “I _don_ _’t_ , because you never _tell me anything_ unless I pry it out of you. Don’t you think you’re being just a _little_ hypocritical here, or do you not remember the part where I had to learn from my _mother_ that you were a Vigilant?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Serana—that was months ago!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’ve lied to me, too! And now you’re mad at _me_ for doing the same shit you did back then? At least I did it to protect you instead of just keeping shit from you because I just didn’t _feel like_ telling you!”

“I never _asked_ for your protection!”

“Yeah, well,” Serana throws her hands up in the air, looking the very picture of frustration, and Eres can’t even fault her for it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she even _knows_ she’s being unreasonable, that she _is_ being hypocritical—but at the moment she can’t bring herself to care. “That’s what happens when people care about you, Eres. They protect you whether you ask them to or not.”

Serana sounds like she’s done with it, like she’s done fighting her, like she just wants to concede it and get it over with and never talk about it again. But Eres is still _angry_ , and she has nowhere to put all of it, and she needs _something_. Something to do, something to fight, something to take her mind off it, something she _knows_ how to deal with and face that’s _easy_ and simple and not _her mother returning after twenty years._

“Who else knew?” Eres asks. “Were _all_ of you lying to me?”

“No one,” Serana says, though she looks like she’s biting back a less civil retort. Eres almost wishes she wouldn’t. At least then she wouldn’t have to feel guilty for still wanting to snap at her. For the fact that part of her still _wants_ to fight, if only to have an outlet. “At least as far as I know. I didn’t even figure it out until last week. She’s been using a glamor.”

A glamor. Just as Isran had suggested would be the case. It would explain why Eres hadn’t noticed anything that would suggest Auria was related to her.

Serana takes a breath, then, and sighs. Her shoulders sag. “I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I didn’t want to hide it from you. I just—I thought you’d rather hear it from her than me. Whenever she got around to it.”

It’s Serana’s expression that cools Eres’ temper more than her words. Her expression speaks volumes of how much she cares, of how much she _hadn_ _’t_ meant to hurt her, of how remorseful she does feel about the entire situation. Eres had known that, of course, deep down, but anger had a way of clouding her judgment, her logic, her ability to see things as they were and not how she wanted them to be.

How she wanted them to be, because anger has always been so much easier than _hurt_. Eres can deal with anger. She knows it well. She’s comfortable in it, she’s used to controlling it and boxing it up and only reaching for it if she needs it. She knows how to cope with anger.

She’s much worse at coping with despair, and sorrow, and anguish, and all of the things tangled up inside her about her mother and her abandonment and everything else. There’s a part of her, because of that, that wants to hold on to that anger, that wants to do something to keep that fight going just to keep everything else at bay. But she looks at Serana, and she can’t.

The last lick of that flame inside her winks out and dies, and something gaping and sinking and cold opens up in its place, threatening to swallow her whole. It descends upon her like an avalanche, like a tidal wave, and she’s drowning in it, just barely managing to tread water, barely managing to hold it together. Barely managing to keep herself from breaking on it, from shattering against the jagged edges of the pain clawing up into her chest.

Serana sees it in her, and reaches for her, and this time Eres does not brush away her touch or move away but she allows it, instead. It’s more than an allowance, or even a grudging acceptance but a _wanting_ , a yearning for it, and Eres reaches for her, too, because she needs it. Because sometimes, maybe, just sometimes—Eres can’t be strong. No one can be strong, all the time. Sometimes, one has to allow themselves to be weak.

Even if it’s just for one person. Even if they let no one else see it. Eres can allow herself that, with Serana, can’t she?

Eres lets Serana embrace her, lets herself be held, lets herself _go_.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs, against Serana’s shoulder. “For yelling at you.”

Serana squeezes her tighter for a second, then pulls away. Eres holds herself very still when Serana’s hand comes to rest upon her cheek, a thumb brushing just beneath her eye, wiping away a tear that Eres hadn’t even realized had fallen. The way that Serana looks at her makes her heart pound beneath her skin, sparks a heat that is not anger in her cheeks.

“I understand,” Serana says simply. “I… had a feeling something like this would happen, to be honest. I knew you wouldn’t be happy if you found out on your own, and you’re not that stupid.”

“ _That_ stupid,” Eres repeats, if only to break the tension. She has to try to break it, because she doesn’t know what might happen if she doesn’t. She doesn’t know what she might do, or say, or-she doesn’t know. There’s something in Serana’s eyes, in her expression, in the way she looks at her that says it’s not _just_ her. It’s not just Eres, reading into things that aren’t there.

There _is_ something there, with Serana. It’s not just her. She’d suspected but now she’s fairly certain that she _knows_ it.

Somehow, _knowing it_ is scarier than just suspecting. Suspecting it feels like a maybe, a what if. Knowing it feels like an inevitability, and Eres has no idea how to get from where they are now to where they _could_ be. There’s no map here from point A to point B. There’s no step-by-step outline of how one might shift a relationship from friends to something more. There’s nothing and no one that Eres can turn to for answers, for help, for guidance.

There’s just the two of them, and this tense, strained dance between them, and it feels like both of them are on the edge of a very fine line.

A knock sounds at the door then, and the door opens before either of them are able to answer. Eres expects Serana to step away from her, but she doesn’t—instead, she feels the arm around her waist tighten in a manner that makes her stomach flip and her cheeks _burn_. Something about it feels protective, possessive even. It feels as though something has changed between them, suddenly, and Eres is not even sure she knows what that something _is_.

It is Auria who enters the room, and whatever heat Eres had felt from Serana’s sudden streak of confidence towards her cools to ice.

Serana’s arm does loosen, then, if only just. “She knows,” she says to Auria, and Eres can see something in the woman shift. Something in her posture, in her very countenance, something that straightens the woman’s spine and refines her features to coolness. “She figured it out on her own, before you decide to blame me for it.”

“I see,” is all that Auria says, eyes flicking between them. She raises a hand, waves it in the air almost casually, and somehow it is like seeing clearly for the first time. Suddenly, Eres cannot even comprehend how she had not seen it before. Auria looks _just_ like her, if only slightly older, and there’s a certain poise to her, now, a certain regality that is so jarring against the humble uniform of a maidservant that she seems—seems _wrong_ , somehow. Like she doesn’t quite fit.

But Serana turns to Eres, and with all the sincerity the world could offer, asks her, “Do you want me to stay for this?”

Eres considers that, she does. She considers how much help Serana’s unwavering support might be, how much she could use Serana’s strength when she feels like she might have none of her own she can depend on. But at the same time, she knows this is a conversation that she must have on her own. That this is meant for herself and Auria, and no one else.

“No, thank you.” Eres finally steps out of Serana’s hold, then, though she makes a point to squeeze her hand once as they part, as Serana makes to leave, if only to be certain that Serana knows that she appreciates the offer.

“I’ll be in the study if you need me.”

The door closes behind her, and Eres is left alone.

With Auria.

With her _mother_.

For a long moment, it is silent.

It is Auria who speaks first.

“I expect you have questions,” Auria says, and her voice is level and smooth and so carefully even. What had once been just the soft hint of a Valen burr to her accent strengthens as she speaks, now removed from the role she had taken as disguise. Her expression is as unreadable as Eres imagines her own might be, locked behind a mask of polite disaffection.

Eres nods. “Why did you leave?” She asks, because that is the first question she had always thought of as a child, and it is the first one that comes to mind now. She does not tell Auria that Mirabelle had told her of it. She has no idea if Mirabelle was telling the truth, though she can’t imagine the woman as being the type to lie to her face about such a thing.

Still, she wants to know if Auria’s story will line up with Mirabelle’s, or if Mirabelle had merely told her the version of events that would cause the least ire. Or, if Mirabelle _herself_ had even been told the truth of it. Auria could have easily lied to her, too. 

Auria regards her for a second, searchingly. Her hands smooth at the front of her corset, needlessly. “First, I must know. How was your relationship with Heinrich?”

It takes Eres a moment to remember that Heinrich was her father’s given name. It had been so long since she had heard anyone refer to him as such that she had very nearly forgotten it. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Auria’s expression tightens. “There is the chance that he may have been a good father to you,” she says slowly, measured and careful, “even if he was a terrible man otherwise. If you already have preconceptions regarding his character, then… It may be more difficult for you to hear what I have to say.”

 _Oh,_ Eres thinks. That makes sense, she supposes. She crosses her arms. “We didn’t get along,” she says shortly. “He spent most of his time gambling, when he wasn’t yelling at me.”

Auria looks a bit saddened by that, but not surprised. “I see. Then perhaps you will believe me.”

“We’ll see.”

“Very well.” Auria nods determinedly. “I am told you remember—” she pauses. Swallows. She averts her eyes for a moment, blinking away what might have been tears. When she looks back at Eres, she has steadied herself just as quickly. “I am told you have few memories of me. I assume this means you don’t remember what happened the night I left.”

Eres’ teeth grind together against her will, her jaw hardening. She doesn’t like to think about it, but she will not be able to avoid it, in this moment. “I don’t,” she says shortly. “I only know what he told me.”

Auria nods again. “For you to understand what happened, I imagine we must start from the beginning. Are you aware of what your father did for a living?”

“You mean besides gamble away his life savings?” Eres asks dryly, as unimpressed with him now as she has ever been. “I have no idea. He never talked about his work, and I never cared to ask him.”

“Your father…” Auria sighs, closing her eyes for a moment. “I am not sure if your father truly fell to gambling after my departure. What he may have done after I left is as much a mystery to you as it is to me. But,” she says, “your father was… He was not a brilliant man, but he was a conniving one. He was cunning, in his own way.”

Eres knows that much. Auria doesn’t have to tell her that. She’s the one who spent twenty years living under that man’s thumb.

Auria leans against the back of the lounge chair by the reading nook, clasping her hands before her. She suddenly looks very tired, beneath all her regality and poise.

“Many years ago now, several years before you were born, I lived in Falinesti, in the Heartland.” Eres doesn’t understand where this is going, but she remains silent. She sits on the edge of her bed, facing her.

“There was a retinue of Imperial soldiers who had been stationed just outside the city, near a sacred site of our people. At the time, the Empire wished to open a more established trade route from our capital to theirs. One of their generals, however,” Auria’s expression tightens, lips pressing together into a thin line, “had no respect for the ways of our people. There is but one law in the Heartland that carries a capital punishment. Harming the forest,” she says, “in any way, demands immediate retribution. This General had gotten it into his mind that he would deface our sacred site to gain an advantage in the negotiations between our countries--by threatening that which we held most dear. As you can imagine, things quickly went south, once our own leaders realized what he had done, hoping to gain leverage against us.

“They were not aware of our laws, and in the ensuing turmoil, the General fled back across the border into Cyrodiil. But, we could not allow him to escape the punishment our Gods demanded—and so several of our most skilled agents stole away into the Empire to glean what information they could of the General’s location. It was determined, over several years, that the General had taken to a rather stationary existence within the Capital, under close guard. We could not reach him as we were. But, we soon learned of a man who had connections to several high ranking officials within the Legion—including the very same general we sought to extract.”

Eres’ eyes narrow.

“That man was your father,” Auria says needlessly. “He was not an especially powerful man, but he knew powerful people. And due to his station, his own security was quite lax in comparison. And so, several of we Harriers were sent into Cyrodiil in disguise in an attempt to gain access to him, and through him, the General. I was one of those Harriers, and it was I who first came in contact with Heinrich.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “You were a spy?”

“That is one word for it,” Auria answers levelly. “I approached him, and learned quickly he had a pronounced weakness for beautiful, meek women. As men do,” she adds, with a bit of a shake of her head. “It was decided I would attach myself to him, gain his trust, and use him to gain access to the General. We believed it would not take long. Heinrich was not an especially careful man.”

“Unfortunately,” Auria continued, “The General was much more cautious. The other two Harriers were discovered during surveillance of him, and summarily executed. In just under a year, I was the last. The situation had become much more dangerous than we intended, and I could no longer leave for fear of arousing suspicion. The timing would have been far too coincidental for the Legion to turn a blind eye. And so I remained, and I—” Auria shakes her head. “I performed my duties as expected, while I awaited the chance to return home. It was not long after that I learned I was with child, and so I was forced to remain longer—I could not risk the life of my child for an attempt at escape.

“Once you were delivered, I had to bide my time. It was too dangerous to travel so far with such a young infant, and I could not leave until you were old enough. Meanwhile, the Council sent along new Harriers who searched incessantly for opportunities to extract me. More than once, such opportunities arose—but I could not take them. First because you were not old enough—then because they had only planned for me, not a child.”

“I stayed,” Auria says quietly. “For four years, I stayed, and I played the fool for that man. But at long last, I received word that they had finally, _finally_ —developed a plan for both of us to be extracted. I was to take you at night through the sewers down to the lake. I woke you, I carried you in my arms, rowed us across the lake in the dead of night in the pitch black—our extraction team were to meet us on the shore.”

“But,” Auria’s eyes flash with pain. “We arrived to an Imperial ambush. Somehow, they had known of the escape. The team had been slaughtered when they arrived, and in their place were Imperial soldiers—soldiers in your father’s pocket. I might have been executed myself, had your father not instructed them to let me live.” Her expression hardens dangerously. “Your _father_ ,” she bites out, “wanted me to know the pain of losing you. The soldiers took you from me, told me I was to be exiled. Were I to ever show my face in the Empire again, they said, Heinrich would have you killed, and your head sent to me to remind me of my place.”

Eres’ mouth snaps into a frown. “My father wouldn’t have killed me. He wasn’t a murderer.”

“Perhaps not,” Auria admits, but she raises her chin defiantly all the same. “But I could not take that chance with your life. I planned—I _hoped_ ,” she says, “that one day, once your father had passed, I would be able to return for you. I could not even send Harriers there to watch over you. The tensions between our people was too great. I could only hope that your father would treat you better than he had treated me.”

Eres looks away. “Depends on how he treated you,” she mutters. “He wasn’t a great father.”

“I feared as much.” Auria straightens. “That,” she says, “is the truth of what happened the night I left. And why I never returned for you. Have you any other questions for me?” Something about her voice sounds almost hopeful, like she _wants_ Eres to be curious, like she wants her to know more.

“One,” Eres says shortly, and she can feel tension tightening every muscle within her body. “Why did you lie?” She asks. “Why did you sit here and pretend like you were no one, instead of just telling me who you were to begin with?”

“You were delirious, for one,” Auria notes, and Eres scowls at her. “But, I only wished to know you before I—”

“So what, you wanted to know if you wanted me back?” Eres bites out. “You wanted to get to know me first just to make sure I was worth it?”

“I wished to know you,” Auria says tersely, equally stiff, “so that I might know how best to approach you. So that I would know _how_ I might tell you who I was, without pushing you away. Without,” she pauses, and sighs heavily. “Without causing you to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” Eres says. Auria looks at her, brows raised, but Eres glares at her, unwilling to budge. “You have to know a person to hate them.”

All things considered, Auria takes it in stride. “That is fair,” she says simply, but her expression softens. “I would like to know you.” Her voice is soft, gentle, coaxing. There is a care and tenderness there that Eres is not even remotely ready for. “If you would allow me to. I have—” a breath. “I have missed enough of your life. I wish to be here for you, for the rest of it.” Eres opens her mouth, but Auria continues before she can respond.

“I know,” Auria says, “that I cannot make up for the years I have missed.” And in her face, in her eyes, in her voice, Eres can see it—the remorse, the grief of it that she lays bare for Eres to see. “I have failed you as mother, in that regard. But I hope… I hope that you will allow me to stay here, with you. That you will allow me to be the mother to you now that I could not be when you needed me most.”

“A chance.” Auria tells her. “That is all I ask for. Just a chance. I know that it is too late but—”

Eres lets out a loud sigh, and stands.

She’s tired. Not just physically, but emotionally. She’s exhausted. She doesn’t have the energy to be angry anymore, to be hateful. And if she’s being honest with herself— _really_ honest with herself—she had never wanted to be.

She had said it, all that time ago. She had spent so much of her life wondering why her mother had left her, wondering where she could have gone, if she was dead or alive, wondering why she had never come back for her all those years. She had spent much of her early teenage years harboring such a deep-seated resentment of her long-lost mother that she’d burned herself out of it. Perhaps, had Auria returned when she was thirteen, fourteen years old—perhaps then she would have still be angry enough to cry and scream at her, to tell her just how much she hated her for leaving her alone with _him_.

But she had grown. She had matured. And she had burned through all the once-misdirected hatred for her she’d once had, long ago. After that, it had been something like despair, like grief, the anger replaced with a profound sadness, wondering—why hadn’t she been _good enough?_ Why hadn’t she been good enough for her mother to bring with her, for her to come back for her?

Learning that Auria’s story lined up so perfectly with Mirabelle’s, knowing the truth of it—knowing that Auria had not left of her own free will, knowing that she had stayed away for _Eres_ _’_ sake rather than her own—somehow, that changes things. Auria being a spy might have been unbelievable, had she not learned of Auria’s skill in magic. Such a woman, she imagined, could easily be quite important in Valenwood, quite powerful, quite a bit more than just an ordinary woman.

And now, she knows. She knows the answers to the questions that have haunted her since she was a child. It does not erase the absence of her. It does not erase the feelings of abandonment, or inadequacy, or any of the consequences of Auria’s actions, no matter how justified they seemed to be. That damage was done, long ago, and there is no reversing it now, so long after the fact.

But she can put that anger behind her, now. She can—she can see an old, unrealistic daydream into fruition.

How many times as a child had she imagined her mother spiriting her away like some hero in a folktale? How often had she latched herself to her father’s various women if only to grasp for that maternal figure she had always wanted? How many times had she been disappointed when they, too, had inevitably fled from her father’s control, from his manipulation and his aggression, from his violence?

How many times had she laid awake at night, yearning for _exactly_ this chance at having what she had always wanted, more than almost anything else? There had been more than one time when she would have given anything for a chance to have met the woman who had birthed her, to have gained the kind of mother she saw other children with.

And now she has it.

She’s still angry, of course. But she’s not angry at Auria, really, not at Serana, or anyone else. Not for just the fact that her mother is here, anyway. She had been angry about the betrayal, about the lack of trust, about the deception. She’s not angry about this.

“Fine,” she says to Auria, and that seems cold but what else can one say to a mother you barely know? “You can stay. But I’m not here most of the year, anyways.” She shrugs then, helplessly, because it’s not like she can take the woman with her. Not even if she’d wanted to would she do that. She’d feel smothered, she’s sure of it.

She _already_ feels a bit smothered, the way Auria is looking at her like she hung the stars in the sky. Auria steps closer to her, and Eres forces herself not to flinch away when the woman reaches for her face, cradling her cheeks in soft hands.

The touch feels—it feels _awkward_ , to Eres. She’s not sure what to do with herself, with Auria touching her so familiarly, with Auria looking at her so tenderly. She’s distinctly uncomfortable, and for a fleeting moment, she actually regrets not saying no.

“Thank you,” Auria breathes, and she smiles a beautiful smile that reminds Eres far too much of her own. They truly are _remarkably_ similar, and Eres feels like she is looking almost at her own reflection, if a mirror could show one what one might look like in ten years. “You have grown so much.”

Eres tugs herself away, a bit, not rudely, but enough that Auria takes the hint to release her. “It’s been twenty years,” Eres mutters. “Of course I have.”

Auria’s smile is a bit uncertain. “Eresael,” Auria says, and Eres blinks at her, baffled. Auria’s brow furrows. “Did your father never tell you your full name?”

 _Eresael?_ Eres has never heard that name before, and yet somehow it feels strangely familiar. Like it had been something she once knew and had simply forgotten. “No,” she manages, a bit surprised. “Just Eres,” she says.

Auria sighs, shaking her head. “Of course not. Contrarian bastard of a man, he was,” she mutters darkly, glowering at nothing in particular. “It _is_ your name, however. It was perhaps the only thing he allowed me to choose for myself.” Auria must see the discomfort on her face, for she adds, “I will call you Eres, instead, if that is more comfortable for you for the time being.”

Eres nods. Then she frowns, and shakes her own head. “It’s fine,” she says, perhaps surprising Auria even more than herself. “I wondered,” she admits. “I wasn’t taught much about—about your side of the family, I suppose. We did have a servant who told me some things here and there, but,” she shrugs helplessly. “Father fired her when he realized she was telling me stories about Valenwood.”

Auria actually scowls, her eyes darkening with sudden anger. “I cannot even _describe_ how much I hate that man.” The venom in her voice is thicker than Eres had thought her capable of. “I’d kill him myself if he weren’t already dead.”

“A bit extreme,” Eres notes dryly. Perhaps if he were a better man, she might have been offended, but she admits that she had entertained the thought of killing him herself quite a few times in the past. She’s in no place to judge.

“Not in the slightest.” Auria argues with a sniff. “He was an awful man. The world is better for his death.”

Eres shrugs. She kind of agrees, but she’s a bit too polite to say it out loud. In front of Auria, anyways.

“No matter,” Auria says primly, “I expected he would teach you nothing of your homeland as it was. I just have a bit more work to do than expected, that’s all.” Auria eyes her a bit critically, and Eres makes a face at her, uncertain of what that look is for. “For one, we must speak of your—friend,” she says slowly. “The vampire.”

Eres stiffens. “You don’t get to have an opinion on her.” Auria can stay. That doesn’t mean she gets to talk poorly of Serana. “She’s my closest friend and—”

“And much more than that, I expect?” Auria asks, quirking a brow. She sighs, a bit dramatically. “Oh, how they would rue me for allowing such a thing. I shall never be able to face them again. You must tell no one, of course,” she says lightly, “but I approve, this once.”

Eres’ brow furrows. “What?”

“Normally I would be against such an—” Auria’s lip curls, her nose wrinkling, “ _unusual_ partnership,” she finishes, and Eres gets the feeling ‘unusual’ had not been the word she might have used originally. “Vampirism, after all, is _wholly_ unnatural. Their kind is an insult to this world,” she shakes her head, but says, “but, I have seen her with you. I do know love when I see it, and I suppose vampires are capable of such a thing, too.”

 _“L-love?”_ Eres half chokes on the word, sputtering. That was—that’s… That’s a bit much isn’t it to just jump straight to love? Surely it can’t—

Auria’s eyebrow quirks higher. “Oh?” She asks. “Do you mean you were not aware?” But Auria’s eyes dance at her, and Eres gets the sense that Auria had most definitely known that she did _not_. “My apologies, I assumed… Given what I walked in on just _today_ , after all…”

Eres’ cheeks burn with belated embarrassment. “That wasn’t what it looked like.”

“Oh, I’m _sure_ ,” Auria drawls, and she is—she’s enjoying this, Eres realizes. She’s _enjoying_ needling her like this.

“Is this the kind of mother you’re going to be?” Eres grouses. “Just saying things to embarrass me all the time?”

“Ah, _mikros_ ,” Auria pats her cheek, with a wry little smile. “ _All_ mothers aim to embarrass their children. It’s in our blood, I am afraid.”

Eres groans, holding her head in her hands. She’s going to regret this; she just knows it.

This is fine.

This is _fine_ , Serana tells herself. Everything is fine. Nothing at all is out of the ordinary. Not a single thing. Not a single thing _could_ be out of the ordinary, because nothing had happened.

Right. Nothing had happened.

Nothing, except for the fact that she’d almost—no. No, she’s not going to think about it. She’s not going to think about it because thinking about it makes it _real_ , and that means she’s going to do nothing _but_ think about it. Except.

Except. How can she even think of anything else? How can she focus on anything else, when just minutes ago, she’d held Eres in her arms, and Eres had looked up at her and she’d looked at Serana like she _knew_ and not only like she knew but like she felt the same way and like she’d wanted it, too, and—and Serana had wanted to tell her, then. She’d wanted to tell her, she’d wanted to let everything spill out of her, she’d wanted to pull her in and kiss her and show her exactly how she felt and the worst part of it all was—

Serana’s not sure that Eres would have been against it. She’s not sure that Eres wouldn’t have just _let_ her. Eres had looked at her, and in that moment Serana had felt like she could have kissed her and Eres might have even kissed her back and she has no idea what to do with that information.

It had been one thing, of course, when Serana had been on the edge of a precipice, wondering if she even had a chance. Way back when on the walls of Fort Dawnguard, when she’d first wanted to kiss her and hadn’t been sure if Eres even felt the same way, hadn’t been sure if Eres ever could. Hell, she’d hardly been sure of _herself_ , then, and then everything had moved so quickly and they were saying goodbye before Serana could examine it any further. Even after she’d kept herself from kissing her on the shores of her home. Even after she’d told herself she’d wait until she was _sure_ of it before she did anything.

She’d be fine, she had told herself. She could be content with just being around her, if Eres never showed any indication of the feeling being mutual. For a while, she’d even managed to convince herself of that, though thinking about it now she can’t imagine how she could have ever believed it wouldn’t have killed her inside. She wouldn’t have been content, Serana knows. She hasn’t been content, isn’t content _now_ , because she’d wanted what she wasn’t sure she could have and though she’d be thankful in any way she could have Eres, she’d still spend her life yearning for more than that. Longing for it. Dreaming of it.

It had almost been a little easier, then, to think of it as an impossibility. To think, maybe, but unlikely. Serana didn’t have to consider how she might actually—how things might actually _work_. How things might actually _happen_ between them.

She may have spiraled a bit internally, but she’d done—alright, at least, in keeping it from Eres herself. She thinks. Probably. Though Eres certainly hadn’t made it easy the first day or so she’d been awake when she was still adrift and a bit delirious and a bit more affectionate than usual. That had been the moment Serana had realized she was screwed. She couldn’t be _casual_ about this when every touch feels like wildfire racing across her skin, when every look and smile and gesture makes her burn on the inside.

But she could have settled. She could have gotten used to it, eventually, and locked all that away somewhere deep down, and she could have been Eres’ friend and it would have been fine. Things would have been fine.

But now she just remembers seeing that sudden understanding in Eres’ eyes, she remembers—she remembers how Eres’ heart had raced beneath her skin, the pounding pulse at her neck more of a distraction than it should have been. She remembers seeing the way her cheeks had darkened, she remembers the little, soft, surprised intake of breath when Serana had instinctively pulled her closer, tight against her hips, and that Eres _hadn_ _’t pulled away_.

Eres. Eres hadn’t pulled away from her. She’d stayed there, even after Auria had entered the room, and when Serana had let her go at last, Eres had even grabbed her hand and grasped it tight, had even sent her a little soft, reassuring smile, and there was something—

There was something _different_ about the Eres she’d seen then, and Serana—Serana is _fine_.

She might die, but she’s fine. Mostly. She’s just—reeling, a bit. Because now, now it feels different. Now it doesn’t feel like a distant daydream but something that _could actually happen_ and Serana’s not even sure how to process that properly. Eres? Loving her _back_? Was that possible? Was it—Did she even _deserve_ that kind of happiness?

Could she even be what Eres needed? Could she even be what she wanted to be to her? Is she even good enough, for something like that?

She can’t help but feel that she isn’t. Eres is—Eres is everything that is good, and proper, and _right_. She’s strong and she’s resilient and honest and brave and so _stupidly_ selfless, all the time, even when it works against her, even when it puts herself in danger. And then there’s Serana, and she’s—she’s a vampire. She’s a creation of Molag Bal. She’s… corrupted, and tainted, and she’s selfish and short-sighted and where Eres cares about _the world_ and _people_ , Serana cares most about _Eres_ , and maybe her mother on a good day. Sure, she’s not outwardly evil or anything, and she’ll help people if it’s not too far out of her way and all, but she’s not—she’s not the kind of person who anyone would call a hero.

She just happens to be attached to one, and so she becomes a little like one just by default, just by association. Would she ever even have as much good under her belt, if she hadn’t met Eres? What might have happened, without her?

But then, Serana wants to believe that’s what love is. She’s read about love like that. Love that makes two people _better_ when they’re together. But she looks at Eres, and though she can feel that _she_ is better around her, she can’t see how she could make _Eres_ any better than she already is. She’s just along for the ride.

And she’s getting a bit dizzy, on this ride. Because Eres might want her, too, and gods help her, she has _no idea_ where to go from here.

Serana groans, and lets her head _thump_ against the bookshelf. Here she is. Eres is upstairs, talking with the mother who abandoned her as a child and dealing with everything else that came with that, and Serana is here freaking out over an _almost_. She should be worried about if Eres is alright up there, if they’re getting along, if Eres might need her. She should _not_ be spending this time thinking about what might happen between them in the future.

She should not be spending this time replaying that scene in her mind, reliving the feeling of Eres pressed against her, looking up at her. She shouldn’t be just—just so preoccupied with where that could have gone, if Auria hadn’t walked in. Would they have kissed, then? Would Serana have been able to find the words to even tell her anything, or would she have just floundered uselessly in the moment?

“Hey—uh,” Serana’s head snaps up. “Are you… feeling okay?”

The tall blonde man hovers awkwardly in the aisle between the two bookshelves Serana has taken to hiding between, looking at her uncertainly. Great. Now she has the farmboy worried about her. How far the mighty have fallen.

“I’m fine.” She’s not even remotely fine.

His mouth twists. He takes a step closer. “No offense intended, miss,” he says, “but you don’t look all that fine to me.” She scowls at him, and he freezes, throwing his hands up in the air. “I-I don’t mean no harm, I just—I thought, maybe, uh, well—”

“Spit it out.”

He swallows. “I thought maybe it’s got something to do with Eres?” He asks more than says, though he moves no closer to her. “I, uh,” he rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I like to think I know her pretty well. So maybe you wanted to talk about it? With me? I might be able to offer some advice.”

She glares at him.

“Or not,” he rushes out, and takes a step back. “I just—I just heard you arguing is all, and she’s got a bit of a temper but she’s alright if you give her time to calm down is all, is all I was going to say…”

“I already know that,” she mutters. “I’m fine.” But she can still sense him standing there. “What?”

He grimaces a little. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” he starts slowly, “and maybe I’m just assumin’ things, but, uh,” he swallows thickly once more, looking away from her. “Is it, you know,” he leans in a bit, lowering his voice. “Are you, you know…?”

Her brow furrows him. “Am I _what_?”

Cautiously, he takes two steps closer, cups a hand around his mouth to keep his voice from traveling. “Are you in love with her?”

She stares at him. Then, at once, she throws her hands into the air. “Can _everyone_ tell?”

“Well,” Yosef gives her a shaky little smile, “you are just a _little_ obvious,” he says, though he flinches when she glares at him. “Just—just a little, mind you! And Eres is kind of oblivious, so you know,” he shrugs. “I don’t think she knows about it.”

Serana, defeated, lets out a long, tired sigh. “Pretty sure she does now,” she grouses.

“Oh?” She reels back, surprised by the sudden glee in his eyes. “You told her?!”

“What? No, I didn’t.”

Yosef deflates. “Oh,” he says, clearly disappointed. “Are you going to?” he asks. “Wait—how come you think she knows?”

Serana regards him for a long moment. She knows next to nothing about this man. She knows that Eres trusts him, at least, and that is a winning recommendation on its own.

Also, he’s not her mother, which is a plus. And if he knew, and Eres hadn’t known until—well, just now, then it probably meant he could keep his mouth shut, if he hadn’t voiced his suspicions to Eres before now.

Fine. Why the hell not. It’s not like she has anything else to do. Or anyone else to talk to. God forbid she go to Isran. Or _Inigo._ She’s quite sure Inigo couldn’t keep that kind of thing to himself to save his life, and Isran—that wasn’t even an option. 

“Her mother is here,” Serana says bluntly. “Auria, the handmaiden.”

Yosef nods, and strangely does not look surprised at all. “That makes sense,” he says, and when she stares at him, he shrugs. “Johanna had a feeling. Said she was real motherly around Eres. I’ve learned not to bet against her.”

Smart man, she supposes. “Eres figured it out on her own before Auria got around to telling her. She was upset.” Yosef nods again, clearly knowing Eres well enough to understand that much. “I comforted her and, well,” she sighs.

“And you think it showed?”

“Fairly certain.”

Yosef shrugs a little helplessly. “Happens,” he says simply. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve never seen Eres as fond of anyone as she seems of you.”

“That’s not what I’m actually worried about, surprisingly.” Yosef’s eyes brighten again, a tentative smile at his lips. She rolls her eyes at him. She will not admit that his enthusiasm is a bit infectious. He is a sweet boy, if nothing else. Eres chooses her companions well. “I don’t—really know where to go from here, is all.”

“Always hard going from friends to lovers,” Yosef says sagely. “Me and Johanna danced around it for what felt like years.”

Well, that’s—not the most inspiring thing she’s ever heard, exactly. “How did that work out, then?”

He chuckles a bit sheepishly, scratching at his scruffy chin. “She got tired of waiting for me. Grabbed me and just laid ‘er on me, right here,” he points to the very corner of his mouth. “Said if I wanted her, I’d have to grow a pair and actually do something about it instead of waiting around for it to just fall in my lap.”

Serana snorts. “That’s—not what I’d expect,” she admits. She’s seen Johanna around. She doesn’t seem like the type to be quite that fiery.

“Oh, she’s a handful,” Yosef says with a grin. “But if it wasn’t for her just goin’ for it,” he shrugs again, “not sure how long we would’ve kept dancing in circles. Or if she would’ve waited around much longer. I mean,” he adds, “we was only fifteen, o’course, so maybe nothin’ would’ve happened, but y’know. You never know. She could’ve found somebody else. She was the prettiest girl in our whole village—not like she had any shortage of boys wantin’ at her. I got lucky, is what it was.”

“Cute.” Serana says, and she actually does mean it. “Sadly don’t think that’ll help here.”

“I disagree,” Yosef says, and he crosses his arms firmly over his chest. “See, takin’ it slow—that works for those types of people who already know they’re wanting to be something more when they meet up, like when you get set on an arranged coupling or something. Everybody already knows going into it that that’s where it’s going, so nobody’s got to push anything. You can take it slow like that and still know you’re gonna get somewhere eventually cause you both got the same expectations.”

“But it’s different when you start out as friends and then that develops into something more, you know? You gotta get on the same page to get anywhere, and you can’t do that if you’re sitting around hiding between bookshelves hoping she don’t realize what’s going on.” He does give her an apologetic look as he says it, but he barrels right on without stopping. “As my wife so kindly put it to me—’a mountain don’t get no shorter for you staring at it’. You want something to happen, you gotta start climbing it one way or another.”

A mountain. Serana shakes her head. That’s one way of putting it. It certainly feels just as insurmountable as one.

“Not that you asked for my opinion, but,” Yosef continues, “I know for a fact that Eres likes, well, the fairer sex, so to speak.” Serana almost snorts at that—that, at least, had not been one of her concerns. “And you’re a beautiful woman, of course, and Eres ain’t blind, and she’s obviously real fond of you, so you know,” he shrugs helplessly. “What do you got to lose?”

“Her,” Serana answers automatically.

But Yosef just stares at her, brows furrowed. “Now you be honest,” he says firmly, “you really think Eres is that kind of woman to let somethin’ like that get between you? Even if it don’t work out in the end, it’s not like she’s just gonna cut you out of her life for good. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

Serana’s not sure she _can_ try. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Kiss her.” Yosef, apparently, is not the kind of man who beats around the bushes. “Or just tell her, one of the two. Whichever works best for you. Either way, you’ll find out how she feels and if she wants to go somewhere with it. The reigns are in her hands, after that, and you can just sit back and let her decide what to do from there.”

“So basically,” Serana drawls, “you’re telling me to throw myself at her.”

Yosef grins a little. “Well, when you put it _that_ way, it sounds bad. I just mean, make your intentions clear, and everything’ll fall into place from there.”

“You seem awfully confident about this.”

Yosef’s grin widens a little. “What can I say?” he asks. “I’m a romantic. You know, if you asked, I’m sure Johanna’d be willing to cook up a nice dinner for you two—wait,” he blanks suddenly, and Serana snorts. “Forgot you’re a vampire. Do y’all eat, or is it just, you know?” He mimes a biting motion.

“Just blood,” she answers, amused despite herself.

“Oh. Well,” and she knows by the way his grin spreads on his face that she’s going to want to smack him. “You could always have _her_ for dinner—”

She throws a book at him, and then she throws another because he yelps when the first one barely taps against his thigh, and he’s _silly_ , a little bit, but—

She has to admit. She understands, now, why Eres keeps him around.

“Thank you,” she says to him sincerely, as he bends to pick up one of the thin books she’d tossed at him. “I don’t know what I’ll do yet, but it’s—I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about this.”

“No problem.” He smiles at her, carefully sliding the book back into place, and then the second.

“Are you going to stop flinching every time I look at you, now?”

He makes a show of eying her warily. “That depends, do you ever stop looking like you’d break me in half for fun?”

“No,” she says, and smiles just enough to let her fangs show.

To her surprise, Yosef just shakes his head, smiling wryly. “Ah,” he muses aloud, “so Eres is a woman of taste as well, I see.” When she raises a brow at him, he grins, and says, “There is nothing more attractive than a woman who can kick your ass.”

Serana laughs until it hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of love Serana and Yosef.


	6. Temple Run

ACT 6  
CHAPTER VI  
TEMPLE RUN

It is hardly the first time Eres has made preparations to leave Fellburg.

It _is_ the first time, however, that she has done so with her mother breathing down her neck.

“And when shall you return?” Auria asks her, and though she is not _actually_ breathing down Eres’ neck, it certainly feels as though she may as well be.

Auria, now free of the handmaiden’s disguise she had adopted to insert herself into the Fellburg household, has foregone the servant’s dress entirely. Instead, she is dressed in a flowing, light tunic that ends just above her knees and is tied at the waist with a sash-like silken fabric that wraps over one shoulder and again at the waist and is tucked to leave its tail to dangle at one side. While the tunic is a plain, unremarkable shade of off-white, the wrap she wears is a crisp, rich royal blue of such finery that she looks almost a queen to be wearing it, in some regards. The customary wear of the native Bosmer were designed for both freedom of movement and comfort, yet it was plain that some attention had been paid to fashion as much as any other culture may have been.

In a way, it reminds Eres almost of the senators she would sometimes glimpse deeper within the Imperial capital. Though those same senators never traveled as low as the East Corridor, she had seen enough of them from a distance that their long togas and draping robes had been marked in her memory. Auria’s dress reminds her of that, in a way, only not nearly as impractical.

To her question, Eres shrugs helplessly. “It shouldn’t be too long,” she tells her, when Auria frowns. “But I don’t know how long it may take to choose a successor.”

Auria hums, her gaze drifting elsewhere for a moment. Eres has not known _this_ Auria particularly long - the one who is more careful with her expressions, the one who filters each and every action and reaction she takes - but Auria is still so similar to herself in some ways that she has no trouble with reading the woman’s expressions even when she tries to hide them.

Auria, though she had, of course, known previously about Eres’ station as Keeper of the Vigil - she had to have known, as she had been aware of Coldharbour at least - had never reacted outwardly to its mention prior to the reveal of her identity. Now that Eres knows who she is, Auria has been more plain in regards to her opinion of the Vigilants. She has never said as such to Eres’ face, but the way in which she smooths her features when they are mentioned, Eres knows: Auria does not think kindly of the Vigilants, and she thinks even less fondly upon Eres’ station among them.

Eres has not asked why, until now. It has, after all, been less than a full day since they have come to know each other as mother and daughter, rather than “Lady” and handmaiden. There is enough tension between them already, the awkward dance of uncertainty as to how they are supposed to act with one another, without introducing more tensions into it. Such as, for example, her mother’s apparent distaste towards what Eres has done with her life, for example.

Eres looks away from her, back to the bag she is packing for the journey. She misses her old pack - it had been sturdier, larger, and she had crafted a number of additions to it personally. Enchanted pockets for the preserving of foods for longer periods of time, proper insulation and waterproofing, even several crush-proof pockets meant to hold the potions she kept in backups. This was just a regular pack, no different than any one might find at a market, and would not even be half as useful as her old one that had likely burned along with the mansion back in Chorrol.

“You don’t seem to be very fond of the Vigilants,” Eres says carefully. She rolls an extra set of robes into a tight coil, then rolls that into leather treated with oil. If her pack falls into water, she hopes it will keep at least most of her clothes from getting soaked through. “Any particular reason?”

Eres has her own reasons, of course. The Vigilants were rather black-and-white in their thinking. There is bad, and there is good, and there is nothing in between. Many of them are little more than fanatics with a license to kill, and some, Eres knew, had only become more paranoid following Altano’s betrayal. Others had become more uncertain, shaken by the knowledge that even those they considers brothers could be corrupted as well as any other.

Under her guidance, she had imposed stricter rules for Vigilant intervention - cooperation with local authorities being one of them, which usually kept the murders down to a minimum, but she is not fool enough to believe that all the Vigilants follow her direction when they are so often so far from home. And therefore, too far from the Temple for their behavior to be properly enforced by superiors.

The Vigilants could be fanatical, could be overbearing and too quick to resort to violence to solve the problems they encountered, but, for the most part - they did so because they felt they were working for the greater good. They were misguided, not evil.

Auria hums again. “I suppose it is the same reason I dislike the Imperials,” she says, and when Eres looks up at her, the woman shrugs. The motion seems strangely undignified when she’s wearing such fine clothes, like such a casual expression doesn’t suit her station. What _was_ her station, anyways, Eres wondered. The way that Auria held herself certainly did not scream _spy_. It seemed closer to nobility, or some kind of dignitary. “They believe the world itself must bow to their ideals, and when it does not, they resort to brutality.”

That’s fair, Eres thinks. They do. “I didn’t think Vigilants were even that far south.”

“They aren’t.” Auria’s eyes harden for a moment. It is a bit dizzying, sometimes, how quickly Auria can switch between soft and pliable to hard and unyielding. “We have made sure of _that._ ”

Eres raises a brow. She’s certain there’s a story behind that one. As there often seems to be, when Auria speaks of Valenwood at all.

“Why did you join them?” Auria asks her suddenly, her brow furrowing. “Of all things you could have done to support your life here—why choose the Vigilants? I did not take you as someone particularly religious in nature.”

“Opportunity knocked, and I answered.” Eres answers, shrugging. If it seems like a stupid reason to Auria, it’s because it largely was. “A man approached me with a job offer. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She shoves her roll of spare clothes deep into the pack, and sighs when she sees how little room is left within. She will have to pack even lighter than she planned. “I wasn’t religious, before.”

“Before…?”

“Before Molag Bal.” The rusted horn that, even now, she keeps tied at her waist feels heavy, in that moment. It has still not returned to its former brilliance, and Eres does not believe it ever will. Accepting Molag Bal’s deal within the mansion, no matter what her intentions had been, had been the final straw for Stendarr’s patronage. He had drawn his influence from her all at once, and even the tormented whispers she had once heard from that horn in Coldharbour were silent, now. Stendarr had at least not cursed her, but he would never bestow his blessings upon her again. That, she is sure of.

“Stendarr blessed me in the battle against him at the Beacon. He saved my life.” Dawnbreaker catches her eye from across the room, leaning idly against a dresser. She has not drawn it since Coldharbour, but it has remained, steadfast as always. “Meridia, too,” she adds.

“You wear an amulet of Mara as well,” Auria notes. “Did Stendarr’s blessing upon you waken your faith for all of the Divines?”

“Not all of them.” Mara’s pendant taps against her collarbone as she moves. She has kept it tucked within her shirt as always, but she imagines Auria must have seen it before she had been conscious. “Mara just seemed…”

That is one she can’t put down to one particular event. There had been nothing that had pointed her to Mara, specifically. Just a feeling.

“She seemed right,” Eres finally says. “It felt wrong not to include her.”

When Auria hums this time, it is with interest - not disdain. “Do you recall?” She asks. “You called me Mara, when you first awoke.”

Eres does. Barely. It’s an embarrassing memory, thinking of it now. “I do.” She says. “You sound like her.”

A pause. Auria comes to her side. “I sounded like her when you awoke?” She asks.

“No,” Eres eyes the inside of her pack. She thinks she might be able to fit a few potions in here, if she gets creative. “You always sound like her. You have the same voice. She just sounds more…” Eres waves a hand, vaguely, “godly.”

“Hmmm…” Eres looks at her, to find the woman considering her carefully.

“What?”

“I wonder,” Auria says slowly, “if perhaps, you do remember a bit more of me than perhaps even you know.” Eres frowns. “Mara _is_ the Great Mother—it is even believed that _our_ Mother, that of the Bosmer—is the same Goddess, she who presides over all, she the creator of all life. Is it so farfetched to believe she may have reached for you in a voice she knew you would recognize as motherly?”

Eres’ frown deepens. She does remember thinking Mara’s voice had sounded familiar, but—she’d had no idea where from. “Maybe,” she concedes, at least, because perhaps Auria has a point, and it’s not as though she can ask Mara herself why they sounded alike. It was as likely a theory as any other.

“I hope one day, you may recover the rest of your memories as well.”

“Unlikely,” Eres mutters. She looks away when Auria’s face falls, because she hates to be a disappointment even to a woman she barely knows. “I was four, Auria. Even if I hadn’t lost those memories when I was younger, I probably wouldn’t remember them very clearly as an adult, anyways. Most people don’t have memories that young. I just… forgot them a bit earlier than most people do.”

“There… are ways,” Auria says haltingly.

“Oh, no,” Eres looks up again, shakes her head. “You’re not using that mind-melding magic thing on me anymore.”

Auria had done so only once, the night before, after their long talk. She had expressed concern over Eres’ continuing nightmares, and suggested perhaps it was simply due to Eres’ psyche being too fractured from her experience in Coldharbour. With her magic, she had suggested, she could help to mitigate the damage caused, push it somewhere that her waking mind would not be dragged against the jagged edges. Eres had allowed her one attempt, and one attempt only—it had felt like something slimy and cold crawling and slithering inside of her mind, and she had reacted poorly.

They had gone to sleep shortly after—Eres, feeling colder than usual and a bit apologetic, and Auria, sporting a rather nasty migraine following the forced ejection from Eres’ mindscape.

Auria sighs, now. “A child of mine should not be so resistant,” she mutters, shaking her head. “We will have to break you of that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Of fighting a healer,” Auria says plainly. “You should have been broken of such habits as a child, but I imagine your father never bothered with such things.”

Eres actually can’t remember anything like that. She’d never seen magical healers as a child. She’d hardly even seen physicians, but her father would have trusted even the shoddiest physician over any mage. Eres is still sure, even now, that if her magic had not kept escaping her when it wanted to, he would never have even bothered with the few tutors she had. For what it was worth, he _had_ gotten very good tutors for her. That was at least one thing he had done correctly. 

“Never had much healing. And I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know,” Auria says, gentling, “it is an instinctual reaction to invasion. Children must be broken of that instinct, trained to open themselves to such things so that healers can do their work without running into such defenses. Though,” Auria concedes, “I admit I don’t know that even openness to Imperial healing techniques would have helped in this case. Our magic does not quite feel the same. You may have fought me either way.”

Eres has her thoughts about that. About Bosmer magic, and what it might mean. Maybe she can learn it. Maybe it would be easier than collegiate, even. But that’s for another time.

“Well, I’m fine for now,” Eres tells her. “I’ve never really been a heavy sleeper, anyways. It’s not a big deal.” She closes the pack, tosses it over her shoulders. Its weight sits oddly, but she will manage.

“We will see.” Auria does not look convinced. “I have a favor to ask of you, _mikros_.”

Eres looks at the woman warily. She sees Serana by the door, dressed and ready and, apparently, having escaped her own mother. “What is it?”

Auria pulls one of the thick, bronze bands that she wears around her wrists apart, and holds it out to her. “Will you wear this for me, on your travels?”

Eres picks it up, turns it over. When her fingers press against the inside of the metal, she can feel a barely-perceptible buzzing sensation—magicka, coating the interior surface. She tries reaching for it with her own, trying to sense what the enchantment might do, but its structure and makeup don’t make sense to her. “What is it?”

“Connection.” When Eres frowns at her, Auria smiles just a little. “It is merely a way I might know of your health. Should something happen to you, I will know it.”

“That’s all?” Eres asks. “No spying?”

“Its only function is to track the well-being of the wearer. Put it on.” Eres does so, wary. When she slides the open band over her wrist and releases it where she wishes it to be, its band tightens, closing on its own until it is near seamless, and Eres can no longer even tell where its open end had been originally. “It is warm, no?” Eres nods—there is a distinct sensation of warmth where the band lies against her skin. “Should something happen to you, say, a serious injury, or death, the band will cool. The colder the band becomes, the more danger the person is in. If it should freeze and shatter, it indicates the death of the wearer.”

“Oh. That’s…morbid.” Eres pulls her sleeve down over it, then moves to pull on her vambraces. She is half to pulling the vambrace on when she realizes she had, without thinking, already agreed to wear it. “I suppose it’s better than you trying to come with me.”

“Now, _mikros_ ,” Auria says patiently, “would having your mother along be so bad?”

Eres glances at Serana. “Yes.”

Auria follows her gaze, and, as if reminded, suddenly pulls a small pouch from her side and hands it to her. When Eres looks inside it, she sees what appears to be small pastries. Cookies.

 _Cookies_. “Auria, I’m not twelve.”

Auria rolls her eyes. “I am aware of that, yes. I birthed you, after all. I think I would remember how old you are. Those,” she says, and her lips curl into a smirk, “are for you—remember to eat something with sugar when you’ve… donated blood,” she says, almost diplomatically.

Almost. Eres is horrified all the same. “I don’t—”

“Of course,” Auria quirks a brow at her, but her expression is much less amused when she looks to Serana, who looks suddenly like she’d much rather be just about anywhere else. “And you— _once_ in two weeks, and _only_ if she is eating well.” Auria gives Eres a look, then amends, “Four weeks, until she has gained weight.”

Serana flounders. “I—I wasn’t going to—” she starts, “I hunt! I don’t feed from her.”

Now that she doesn’t have Molag Bal to worry about, the idea of Serana feeding from her is not one that she necessarily has any objections to, should it come down to it. She may have even wondered what it might be like, if she’s being completely honest. Not that she would go out of her way to ask Serana to do it just to satisfy her curiosity. No, never that.

But Eres does gives her mother a shrewd look, intrigued despite herself. “How do you even know how long there should be between feedings?”

“I am a healer,” Auria says primly. “And I don’t know exact timings, but given how long it takes someone to recover from typical blood loss, one can assume that loss due to feeding is similar, no?” She looks at Serana. When Serana does not answer immediately, the woman raises her brows pointedly. Serana, after a moment, nods awkwardly. “If you _must_ choose a vampire as your companion, then you must at least be smart about it.”

Eres flushes, but she’s not certain that Serana realizes that _companion_ may as well mean the same as _lover_ , to Auria, for Serana has no outward reaction. That, or Serana is much better at hiding her embarrassment than Eres is.

“I don’t think we’ll have to resort to that,” Eres tells her instead. “We’re just going to the Temple. It’s not that far from here.”

Auria hums again at that, doubtfully. Eres doesn’t know how, but she seems to have gotten it into her head that she and Serana have been up to _way_ more than they actually have. Including, apparently, Eres offering herself up as a free meal ticket. “We will see about that.”

Alright, she’s done with this conversation. “Let’s _go_ ,” she says to Serana, and hurriedly marches out the door before her mother can say anything else embarrassing. “Are mothers always like this?”

“So I’ve heard,” Serana drawls. “I suppose I should count myself lucky my own mother has never been the type.”

“Lucky you.”

Eres does make a point to wish Yosef and Johanna and even Julia and Neil a goodbye before she goes. To her surprise, Yosef does not even twitch when Serana wishes him a farewell. In fact, he smiles, and, strangely, wishes her ‘good luck on the mountain’. Whatever the comment meant, it makes Serana direct a scowl in his direction as they go, but she does not seem keen on telling Eres what it means.

At last, they are at the stables, where Inigo awaits them eagerly. He hugs Eres happily when he sees her, and even seems to contemplate doing the same to Serana until she glares at him. He wisely decides not to press it, and the three of them mount up to head north—and leave Fellburg behind once more.

Travelling with three instead of two is—stranger than Eres had expected it to be.

Inigo, of course, seems to have no concept of ‘awkwardness’, or anything of the sort. He jokes around with Serana just as much as he does with Eres, though Serana is not half as receptive to his foolery as Eres is. In fact, Eres would go so far as to say that Serana seems somewhere between mildly annoyed and actively irritated by his presence.

Eres isn’t stupid. She knows why. She had thought of this, the night before, when she’d decided on coming to the temple in the first place. She knew, after what had happened between them, that _something_ had changed, and—and they would need time to figure out where that left them, now. They would need to have time to themselves to understand just exactly what that meant for their future.

 _Their_ future. As in, together. It’s still a bit strange to think of it that way, as a definite possibility rather than a hopeful what-if. But Eres is certain, and if Serana’s behavior around Inigo is any indication, Eres is also certain that _Serana_ is certain about it. There’s something there that they need to explore, together, and well.

They can’t really do that with a tagalong. With Inigo. With a constant witness to every move, every action, every word. Inigo is silly, maybe, a bit more cheery and lighthearted and easygoing than either of them are, but he’s not dimwitted. He is not a child, and from the looks he’s sent Eres now and then, Eres is also certain that _he_ knows, though he’s done little to make himself scarce. Instead, he seems content on smirking at Eres anytime Serana happens to look at her in a certain way, or says something a bit tender. Oh yes, he knows—and he, apparently, is enjoying himself being party to it.

Eres must admit—she’s not as annoyed by him as she thought she might be, when she had been thinking about what Serana and her might do once they’re on the road with him. How could they talk about things, after all? How could they figure out what was next, when Inigo would be there? But now that they’ve actually been on the road a while, Eres is—she’s a bit thankful, actually, though she feels guilty for even that.

She shouldn’t feel thankful, maybe. She’s pretty sure that she shouldn’t. But she does, because—because this is new, and it’s… It’s a little scary. She doesn’t _know_ where to go from here.

She’d had—interests, when she was younger. Passing interests, mostly. There had been a boy she’d grown up with, that had lived on the lower West End, and snuck up to the East Corridor to throw rocks at passing carriages. He was perhaps not the best influence on her, but he was friendly, and warm, and he’d introduced her to his friends, and then _she_ had friends—her. Eres, who had grown up in a household made entirely of adults, and had never truly had many friends her age. She’d been just ten when they met.

Even in the Empire, there is still racism, sometimes. More so, if you happen to be an elf living as a noble, with human friends who aren’t. Some of his friends had been rude to her, wondering how _her kind_ had ever become more than a common street urchin. Wondering if maybe her mother was a whore. He’d fought the one who said that to her. They’d been just twelve.

So yes, Eres had—she’d liked someone, before. She’d liked him, for a while, though it had never felt quite right. She felt like there was _something_ there, maybe, when she was fourteen and he was fifteen, but, well—he’d had other girls by then, and she’d just been his elf friend, and she’d never actually wanted to kiss him, or do anything of the sort. It had just seemed like it was supposed to happen, and when it didn’t, she’d been—confused, maybe. Lost, a little. Could boys and girls _just_ be friends? It didn’t seem like the way the world was supposed to work. Surely, she thought, he’d notice her one day, and maybe by then she’d feel it was right.

But when she was sixteen, he came to say goodbye. He was joining the Army, he said, and he wouldn’t see her for a while. He promised to visit her, when he came back from his tour, and tell her all about the places he’d seen and the battles he’d won. He’d hugged her, and kissed her cheek before he left. It’d been then, she had decided, that yes, she loved him. But not like that. He was just a boy, and she was just a girl, and that was all. He left the next morning, on his way to Camp Argentum right here in Skyrim. She never saw him again. By the time she herself came to Skyrim, she had already mourned him long before. Just another casualty of a pointless war.

That was the one and only time she can really remember liking someone in any real, tangible way, and even that had been misguided. She’d later realized her interests lie mostly in women, of course, but the result is the same:

She’s never been in this situation before, and she has no idea how to navigate it.

The only thing that does make her feel a bit better is that she knows Serana hasn’t had any experience, either. So they’re both—well, they’re both idiots lost up a creek without a paddle, in a manner of speaking. What would they even _do_ if Inigo wasn’t here? Stare at each other awkwardly until one of them worked up the courage to bridge the gap? That would be painful.

“Ahhh,” Inigo breathes in, sitting up straighter in his horse. “I can see Dawnstar—we are close, my friend, at long last!”

“We made good time,” Eres notes. She can’t see quite as far as Inigo can, but even she can see the plumes of smoke curling upward in the distance from the mine and its smelters. Beside her, Serana lets out a miserable sigh. “What is it?”

“I don’t like temples,” Serana mutters. “Hope you don’t mind if I stay outside.”

“In this cold?” Inigo exclaims, near spinning himself around in the saddle to look back at her. “You will freeze!”

“The cold doesn’t really bother me that much,” Serana says dryly. Eres snorts. “ _What?_ _”_

“Sure,” Eres grins at her, “that’s why you were all wrapped up in furs last night on watch.”

Serana huffs, rolling her eyes. “I don’t _like_ the cold, but it won’t kill me,” she amends. “I’ll be fine waiting outside while you two do—whatever it is that you’re going to do in there.”

“Hopefully, tell them to fuck off for good,” Eres mutters. “It’s warmer now, so there should be…” They crest the incline, and Eres can see the bend in the road that leads upward towards the Stuhn Ravine. As expected, she can see the trailing of foot-and-hoof prints in the snow, leading upwards towards the ravine. There’s been enough foot traffic through it recently that the snow there is several inches shorter than that surrounding it. “Plenty of people there,” she finishes, satisfied by what she sees.

“Shall we take the horses to Dawnstar?” Inigo suggests.

Eres shakes her head. “I imagine the stables are about done now. It should be fine. And,” she adds, “we can use them as an excuse to leave earlier, when the time comes.” Oh yes, the poor horses. She can’t leave them out in the cold forever, you see. She has to go now, she can’t stay—or some such excuse.

They turn the horses away from the main road, and up the pass that leads into the narrow ravine. They can only fit two horses abreast within it, and Serana willingly takes up the rear as they go. Eres turns to look at her, worried for the discomfort she can see growing on Serana’s face as they get closer.

Eres slows her own horse, waving at Inigo to go ahead. He looks between them, frowning, but seems to understand when he sees Serana’s face. He nods quickly to Eres, and moves ahead of them. Eres waits for Serana to reach her, then reaches out—Serana brings her own horse to a halt on instinct, turning her head to frown at her.

“What is it?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just wait in Dawnstar?” Eres asks her, concerned. She hasn’t seen Serana look so uncomfortable since—probably since before the battle at the castle. “You don’t have to play escort all the way up to the temple. We’re fine from here.”

Serana shakes her head. “It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t look fine,” Eres says. “Don’t force yourself. If it bothers you, you can wait further away.” She doesn’t need to ask _why_ it bothers Serana. She can imagine why well enough. There were a _lot_ of temples in Coldharbour. “It shouldn’t take too long. We can just meet you at the Inn when we’re done.”

Serana’s face twists, conflict plain in her eyes. Eres thinks she might actually concede for a moment, but then the woman stubbornly shakes her head. “I’ll wait just outside,” she says firmly. When she looks at Eres, there is a hard determination in her eyes—and something like a simmering anger beneath the surface. “I don’t trust them with you. I want to be nearby in case something happens.”

Eres blinks. “They’re not going to _kill me_ , Serana. I’m just going to find a replacement.”

“These are the same people who got you tied up with _him_ ,” Serana mutters. “Forgive me for being a little distrustful.” Serana pauses for a moment, then sighs, her shoulders dropping. “I’ll feel better knowing I’m close by, just in case. It’s bad enough I can’t go in there _with_ you.”

“If you’re sure,” Eres says finally, doubtfully. She can see that Serana isn’t budging, no matter how uncomfortable it makes her. “But I promise I’ll be fine if you decide to wait at the Inn.”

“I’m not going to the Inn, Eres.”

“Alright.” Eres lets the subject drop. Serana’s made herself quite clear. With a sigh, Eres urges her horse forward, and they continue on. She still gets the sense that the neutrality she sees upon Serana’s expression is put there only for her sake.

Inigo is waiting for them near the stables as they arrive—next to a very familiar looking Khajiit and his weathered cart.

“M’que?” Eres stares at him. “What are you doing here?”

M’que takes one look at her and throws his hands to the sky. “Oh, thank the Divines,” the Khajiit breathes, “I did not get another Vigilant killed…”

Eres dismounts, sending Inigo a questioning look. Inigo shrugs helplessly. “He thinks it is his fault,” he says. “For taking you there.”

“Oh.” Eres very wisely blocks M’que from seeing the glare Serana throws in his direction. “It’s not your fault,” she says to M’que. “You couldn’t have known what was waiting there.”

M’que just shakes his head miserably. “This one feared the worst, even before we left. After Bartholo…” he heaves a great sigh, but just as quickly he has straightened, eyes wide. “Quick, you must get inside. The little one—she has been torn to pieces over your death. Or—not death. You were presumed dead,” he says, with a wringing of his hands. “It has been over a month, after all…”

Right. There is that. Poor Gwyneth. “I’ll go in a second,” she promises M’que. With a gesture to Inigo, she doesn’t even have to say a word. Inigo, understanding her with merely a look, draws M’que off to the side, regaling him with tales of less horrifying adventures. Even as she looks now, she can see M’que looking a bit less frazzled around the edges. Inigo has always been good at cheering others up.

With M’que handled, Eres instead turns to Serana, who stands— _almost_ comically, in a corner near the stable door, as far away from the temple’s entrance and the giant statue of Stendarr she can be without drawing unnecessary attention. It’s there she stands, arms crossed over her chest, expression near thunderous—and with eyes that are very much green, and not the very telling red of her nature. _Good idea, Serana_ , Eres thinks, and she is ashamed to realize that she hadn’t even considered it. Serana’s vampirism had become so natural to her that she hadn’t even thought of how the Vigilants would react to her presence.

It is a good thing, then, that Serana is more aware of these things than she seems to be.

“A—” Eres barely gets a sound out before Serana fixes her with a glare.

“If you ask me if I’m sure _one more time_ ,” Serana scowls at her, eyes flashing with warning. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”

“Inigo is here,” Eres points out.

Serana sends a withering glance in Inigo’s direction that’s cutting enough to make _Eres_ feel uncomfortable. “ _As I said_ ,” she repeats, turning back to her, and she does not even bother to finish the unspoken sentence. Her meaning is crystal clear. 

Eres sighs. “He’s really not that bad,” she tells her. “If it wasn’t for him…”

Serana shifts uncomfortably. “I know,” she mutters, “sorry. I’m on edge. I hate—places like this.” She seems almost to shrink in on herself as she says it, and Eres hates to see it. “Bad memories.”

“Serana…” When Serana’s eyes harden again, Eres throws up her hands. “I wasn’t going to say it,” she says quickly, but she does cross the distance between them. “I was just going to say I’m sorry for dragging you here.”

“That is… somehow worse.”

The conflicted look on Serana’s face at this is somehow comical. Eres sends the woman a wry smirk, and she is gladdened to even get a ghost of one in return. It is, unfortunately, one that disappears entirely as soon as she steps closer, replaced instead with a look of trepidation. Suspicion.

“Why are you looking at me like you think I’m going to slap you?”

“I… don’t know,” Serana admits.

Eres holds back a sigh. Yes, this is exactly as awkward as she’d felt it was going to be. Before she can second guess herself—or it can get any more awkward than it already is, she hugs her. Just like that. That’s normal. Sort of. Serana’s arms wrap around her middle automatically despite her misgivings, and she actually does feel the other woman relax a little against her. Well, hell—if that’s all it took, she’ll have to do this more often.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“Better be,” Serana allows her to pull away from her. The softness in her eyes doesn’t match the tone of her voice at all, Eres thinks. Somehow, it’s cute. “I don’t want to have to come in there and get you.”

Eres raises a brow. “Would you?”

Serana’s face twists into something like a pained grimace. “Don’t make me answer that.”

Eres chuckles. “That’s enough of an answer for me,” she says, and it is the feeling of cool skin against her fingertips that makes her realize that she is holding Serana’s hands within her own. It feels a bit like her heart stutters when she notices, breath catching uncomfortably in her lungs—she hadn’t even realized she’d grabbed them in the first place. But Serana hasn’t pulled away, and so Eres swallows down her nerves and grasps her hands a little tighter. Just the slightest hint of a pleased smile appears on Serana’s lips when she does, and it makes it all worth it.

“Don’t worry,” Eres says, sounding much more confident than she feels. She’s certain Serana can hear her heartbeat, and that only makes her more nervous. Is this alright? Is it okay for her to do things like this without warning? Without them talking about it first? “You won’t have to.”

She hears Serana sigh when she leaves, and she’s not sure if it’s for the loss of warmth or the loss of her, specifically, but something about it makes her feel good all the same. She likes the idea of being missed a little, she thinks. She certainly misses Serana when she’s not around.

Eres makes quick work of tugging Inigo away from M’que, and together, the two of them enter the temple.

In the Spring, the Temple is full—or at least, much fuller than it is any other time of year. Even the front altar in the very entrance of the temple is bustling with activity in comparison to the emptiness the temple is known for throughout the winter. Eres ignores the few Vigilants who notice her and appear to do actual double-takes once they see her face. She hears their murmurings, but she pays them little mind.

Instead, she heads straight for the records room downstairs.

Gwyneth is exactly where she would have expected her to be, perusing the bookshelves with a little checklist in hand, likely to keep track of their inventory. But she does so with much less cheer than Eres remembers her for, even less so than what little she had had initially following Altano’s betrayal.

“Gwyneth.”

Gwyneth yelps, flinging her quill into the air as she spins to face her, wide-eyed. “ _Eres?_ _”_ At first there is shock, joy, confusion—but then fear. “Oh _no,_ _”_ she moans, “are you a ghost? If you’re a ghost please leave me alone!”

“I’m not a ghost,” Eres tries not to be amused. She shouldn’t find it funny. Gwyneth had thought her dead. She has every right to feel a bit out of sorts. Eres should not laugh at her for it. And she won’t. At least not openly. “I’m fine.” She approaches Gwyneth, squeezes her by the elbow just to prove she’s very much real.

Gwyneth flings the parchment next, and then she is hugging her like her life depends on it. “I thought you _died_ ,” she wails. “Where _were_ you all this time?”

Eres sighs. “It’s a really long story, and one I don’t really have time for at the moment. Short version is that mansion was indeed haunted, and it was a bit more than I could handle. It took me a while to get well again. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

Gwyneth pulls away, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I’m just—really glad you’re okay. I didn’t want to be the only one here.”

“There are plenty of other Vigilants here this time of year,” Inigo points out. “And I told you I would bring her back, didn’t I?”

“It’s been over a month since you left!” Gwyn rushes out.

“And she didn’t mean it that way,” Eres adds. “She meant she’d have been the only one here from before.”

“Ah,” Inigo nods. “The bad man.”

“Yes, Inigo,” Eres shakes her head, “the ‘Bad Man’.”

“Oh, _Eres_ ,” Gwyn breathes, “what happened to your Horn?”

Eres steps quickly away before she can touch it. She doesn’t want Stendarr to get it into his head that Gwyn deserves to be turned away from, too. “Long story,” she says again, a bit more tensely. “Can you gather the men to the dining hall? I have an announcement to make.”

“Oh,” Gwyn nods. “Alright then.”

Eres watches her go, and heaves a long, steadying breath. She doesn’t know if any Keepers before her had ever just given away their positions before. She may just end up being the very first to do so. She feels nervous all over again, for a much less pleasant reason. 

“Ready, my friend?” Inigo asks her, nodding towards the stairs—and the dining hall just beyond it.

Eres takes a breath, and lets it out. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) For those curious, Auria’s dress is based off Ancient Roman dresses. The biggest difference is that her dresses would be hemmed at the knee for ease of movement instead of the floor-length dresses of the Romans. It would typically be of a lightweight fabric in Valenwood, but given its Skyrim it’s probably much heavier. Cold weather and all. 
> 
> 2) Good news, I have act 7’s basic outline finished and have started writing it at last. So the fun begins...
> 
> 3) Sort of a side note but: In case anyone’s wondering: Eres is bisexual with a strong preference for women. Serana is a lesbian. Because I said so. However, you can also definitely read it is comphet for Eres, and I don't mind if people consider them both lesbians. 
> 
> 4) Serana's "human" eye color: I actually took a look in xEdit and noticed Serana's human eye color is supposed to be blue. But, when I was writing the first scene where Serana uses the glamor for the eyes, I went into Skyrim and played around a bit with her eye color just to see which I thought suited her better between blue and green and had a quick poll in the discord. Most preferred her eyes as "Jade Green", if you want the exact shade. It looks quite nice with her skin tone.


	7. Burn

ACT VI  
CHAPTER VII  
BURN

With all of the Vigilants called in from all corners of the temple, and even from outside on their guard duties, the dining hall is packed to the brim. With only three long tables to seat them, many Vigilants are left standing in the room, waiting for her to address them. Eres does not recognize most of them. Aside from Gwyneth, she had not gotten particularly close to any of the Vigilants here—even the ones who spent much of their time in the temple rather than out on patrols or assignments. With so many having come back at the end of winter, there are even more of them that Eres does not know than usual.

There is no podium to stand behind. No stage she can set herself upon so that she knows she will be heard. All the same, when she moves to stand at the front of the room, she does not have to call their attention to her at all.

At once, a hush falls over the dining hall, and all eyes are on her.

Mara’s amulet feels warm against her skin, but the Horn, as it has been since Coldharbour, is silent and unyielding. She has never felt more out of place in the temple than she does now.

She, who Stendarr now considers little better than a heretic. She, who had fallen to Molag Bal, who had allowed herself to be corrupted—if only briefly. She is not meant to be here. She is not meant to be the Keeper. Not anymore. Truly, Eres does not think she had ever been meant for it. It had simply fallen into her lap, and she had accepted it because no one else could.

Now she is here, and she will bestow it upon someone who deserves it. Someone who has earned it. Someone who will treat the position with the respect and single-minded devotion it requires. Even if Stendarr had not turned his back on her in Coldharbour, she could never have remained here even if she had wanted to. How could she continue her life as a Vigilant, when she is in love with the abominable creation of one of Stendarr’s greatest enemies?

Eres clears her throat. She does not look at any of them in particular, but sweeps her gaze across them. All of their faces blend together dizzyingly. She could not have put a name to more than half of these faces if her life depended on it.

“Thank you,” she says to them, to start with, “for answering my summons so quickly.”

One of the older Vigilants near the front, dressed in the finer robes of an Elite, crosses his arms over his chest. “What is this about, Keeper? Has something happened?”

Eres almost laughs. _Has something happened?_ What _hasn_ _’t_ happened, would be a better question.

“No,” she says instead, because she knows what he fears: that there is some wide-reaching Daedra threat they must all work together to defeat. She imagines that is the only thing these men would expect such a meeting for. “But, I have announcement to make.”

Eres takes a breath. For all the bluster she’d had about telling them to fuck off, she’s still nervous. She has decided, right here and now, that she hates speeches. She hopes she never has to make one again.

“As of today,” Eres begins, “I am resigning from my position as Keeper of the Vigil.”

Murmurs, exclamations—some with surprise, some with understanding, quite a few with derision. Eres is not surprised by that in the slightest. There had been many among the senior Vigilants who had not taken well to her appointment as Keeper, given both her lack of tenure and her young age. Those few would be happy to see her go, she is sure. She hopes one of them, for all their scorn, might actually make themselves useful and take the position from her. See how they like it.

“You cannot do that,” argues one man, standing up. “No one has ever _resigned_ from being Keeper—”

“Then I will be the first.” Eres makes her voice firm, but not harsh. She does not want to anger them. The last thing she needs is to end up making an enemy of the Vigilants. She has had more than her fair share of enemies already. “I have—other responsibilities that will interfere with my duties as Keeper. I can no longer hold the position and be certain that I will be able to perform my duties appropriately.”

Well. That is the very watered down, socially acceptable version of her reasoning.

“Your responsibilities as Keeper take precedent,” argues another. “As _our_ responsibilities as Vigilants also come first, so do yours. These other responsibilities of yours—”

“My resignation is not negotiable.” Eres forces herself to keep her irritation from showing. But they will not rope her into this. “I am resigning, one way or another. This is a _courtesy_ , not a debate.” If they want to argue, they can do it amongst themselves. She wants no part in it. “You may decide which of you will assume the role. I care not how you choose my successor.”

She does not even care how long it takes them, or if they manage to do it at all. It’s not her problem anymore.

“I will be leaving tonight to return home,” she tells them. “I will not return. I have kept records in regards to the work I have completed here as every Keeper has. Any who wish to continue it may find it in the records room. Once I leave,” she warns them, and she looks the most angered of them in the eyes directly, one by one. “I expect to leave this place behind me.”

“Typical,” mutters one of the Vigilants towards the back, not quite lowly enough so that she can’t hear him. “I knew it was a mistake to let her lead us.”

“It was,” she agrees with him. “It _was_ a mistake to allow me, someone who had not even been a Vigilant for a year yet, to become your Keeper. And yet,” she says, “none of you stepped up when the time came. I assumed this role because I had no choice. Because no one else would take it from me. I have done my part. I remained here until we were able to recover our numbers, until I knew that my leaving would not cripple the Order. It’s up to all of you to decide what to do now. As you should have from the beginning.”

That’s good enough. That’s all they’re getting.

“Farewell.” Eres turns, and marches out of the dining hall. She ignores the voices that follow her out, and she heads straight for the stairs.

In moments, she is in the room she once kept here. There is little in the way of personal effects, but, this is where she had always kept the ceremonial Horn of Stendarr which signified her position. She would bring it back to the dining hall for whoever took her place, clear out the last of her belongings, and be gone by nightfall. And she would never have to see these people again, if she’s lucky.

When she hears footsteps just a few minutes into rummaging through the drawers of her desk for anything she might wish to take with her, she expects to see Inigo. Instead, it is Gwyneth who stands at her door. Gwyneth, who looks like she might cry.

“Eres,” she breathes, and enters at once. She does not, for once, stand on ceremony, and instead she walks right up to Eres and clasps her forcefully around the arms with each of her hands. “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“Ah, well…” She probably should have told Gwyneth first, rather than blindsiding her in the hall. But truth be told, she hadn’t been sure she would have kept her nerve if Gwyneth had begged her to stay. “I wanted to address everyone at once,” is what she settles for.

Gwyneth looks down, shoulders sagging. “I’ll be the only one left…”

“Gwyn…” Eres doesn’t know how to comfort her, in this moment. She must leave, even if it breaks Gwyneth’s heart to do so. “I’m sorry. But I can’t remain here any longer.”

“But _why_?” Gwyneth shakes her head vehemently. “You’ve never shown any sign you wanted to quit.” To you, Eres thinks. She’s never wanted it to begin with. “What _happened_ at that mansion that now all of the sudden you want to leave me alone here? Leave all of us?”

Eres can’t tell her that. “I had been thinking about leaving for a long time now,” she admits. “Being a Vigilant for me was never meant to be permanent. It was just a job.” She shrugs helplessly, but even she knows that’s not entirely true. At some point, she _had_ become devoted to Stendarr, in her own way, for her own reasons. She’s still grateful to him even now, despite his abandonment. He had saved her life before. She would not soon forget that.

“Just a job?” Gwyneth echoes.

Eres nods. “I only became a Vigilant because I needed the money. After Altano…” she sighs. “I couldn’t leave you to run this place by yourself. But, there’s plenty of other Vigilants now who can take my place. Plenty of them are much more experienced than I am.”

“But they’re not you.” Gwyneth sinks into the chair besides Eres’ desk, shoulders heavy and head bowed. “You’re my only friend here.”

“You could make new friends,” Eres offers, but Gwyneth shakes her head.

“It won’t be the same. No one else has—” Gwyneth looks up at her, swallowing thickly. Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “No one else from—we were the only ones left. None of them know what that was like. None of them understand…”

It is in this moment, looking down at Gwyneth’s grief, that Eres considers something she had not previously considered.

She has an estate. She has an estate with not one, but two libraries, and now, apparently, a small class of students. Gwyneth would probably do well in such an environment, interacting with children, organizing the books and keeping the studies tidy between classes—and likely cleaning up after Eres herself, when she does her research and rushes out without thinking to put everything back where she found it.

And Fellburg had walls, strong walls, walls that Eres plans to reinforce soon once she gets a good look at the books and sees how much they can afford to purchase from the quarry nearby. The Keep is far more secure than any building here at the Temple would be, and there are guards, and Gwyneth would still be able to see her on occasion when Eres stops back home during her journeys.

It is the best offer she can make Gwyneth, because she knows that nothing else could ever suffice. Eres is done with being a Vigilant, that much is not going to change. But perhaps Gwyneth could find her own peace, as well. Close to home. Where Eres won’t have to worry about how she might be doing, so far away.

“You could come with me,” Eres says, before she can think better of it. Gwyneth blinks, staring at her. “I don’t know how attached you are to being a Vigilant,” she admits, “but if you’re willing to turn away from it… There will always be a place for you at Fellburg, in my home.”

“Your home…?” Gwyneth leans back in her seat, staring up at Eres with wide eyes. “You would let me live there?”

Eres shrugs. “Now that Fellburg is self-sufficient, Yosef has been able to hire housestaff that have gotten the place cleaned up nicely. There are plenty of spare rooms.” Probably more than even Eres knows of, to be honest. She never got around to doing a full exploration of the place after she’d returned. She would have to make a point of doing it sometime soon. Maybe Serana would want to wander around with her a bit when they got back…

“I…” Gwyneth stands, suddenly, looking like she might have been thrilled to agree—but then she shrinks again just as quickly. “I don’t really have much money to buy a house or anything. Or pay for such a room…”

Eres very nearly wants to smack her. “You think I’d make you _pay_ to live in my house?” Gwyneth blinks again, and Eres shakes her head. “You’d live there for free, of course—at least if you only want a room. If you do want a house, then we would have to arrange something else.”

Eres scratches at her chin, frowning. How much money does she have put away of her own, now? Would it be enough to pay a few builders to set up a small house for Gwyneth somewhere near the lake?

“But—but what would I do for money…?”

Eres shrugs again. “Nothing, if you want. I imagine there’s usually enough food to go around,” she thinks, anyways, “and you’re just one person. But, there are a few classes for kids there during the day. If you’d like, you could always help the instructors with the bookkeeping and such. Probably not quite as interesting as Daedra, mind you, but—”

“When do we leave?” Gwyneth gushes the words out so quickly that it takes Eres a second to catch up with what she’s said.

“That simple?” Eres asks her. “You don’t have any attachment here?”

“I can worship Stendarr anywhere,” Gwyneth tells her plainly. “But—I can’t find another friend like you anywhere else. I would love to come work for your estate, if you’ll let me. I don’t think I’ll find a better offer anywhere else. And,” Gwyneth admits, looking a bit sheepish, “I admit I will be glad to get out of this temple. I…haven’t been comfortable in it since before.”

“I can imagine,” Eres says, and she can— _she_ doesn’t feel comfortable in it, and she’s not the one who watched Altano slaughter everyone here. Granted, she’d been Corrupted, but that was a different story entirely. “If you have things you need to pack, I suggest you do so now. I can arrange for M’que to bring you down to Fellburg when you’re ready, but rest of us will be leaving tonight.”

“’Rest of us’?” Gwyneth parrots. “Who else besides Inigo?”

“Oh,” Eres had forgotten. She’d never told Gwyneth about Serana. Oh, boy. That’s going to be…a long conversation. “Another friend of mine.”

Gwyneth’s brows pull together. “Is she a Vigilant?”

At that, Eres actually snorts at the visual. “Not even close,” she answers, smirking with her amusement. “She’s a good person,” she tells her, just to assure her. “Don’t worry.”

Gwyneth’s eyes narrow playfully even as she makes her way to her own room to pack. “The last time you told me not to worry, you were gone for over a month.”

“Well, I mean it this time.”

“We’ll see!” Gwyneth calls back. “I don’t have much, I’ll be ready by sundown.”

“Good.” Eres turns back to her desk. “I’ll make the arrangements with M’que. The others and I have brought our own horses, but if you’ve got more stuff than I do, it’ll probably be better for you to ride in the carriage.”

“I think I’d like that,” Gwyneth muses, her voice fading down the hall. She does not bother to raise it, knowing Eres will hear her even from her own room a few doors down. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen the rest of Skyrim. It will be nice just to sit back and watch it pass by.”

“You say that now,” Eres muses. She tosses a stack of old notes into the fireplace. She doesn’t need them anymore, and they’re not relevant to anything the Vigilants would need. She doesn’t want anything left behind that might clue them in to her experiences with Molag Bal, just in case. “Wait until it starts raining on you.”

“Good point,” Gwyneth mumbles, from her bedroom. “I should bring my cloak…”

Serana waits.

Outside. In the cold. Where it’s fucking snowing.

While it is true that the cold doesn’t necessarily bother her in terms of not being able to _die_ from it, that doesn’t mean she has to enjoy it. When the weather is cold, _she_ _’s_ cold, and that means she gets slower, and her reaction times aren’t as good, and—honestly, the biggest part of it is just that she’s fucking cold. She doesn’t like being cold, as much as it won’t kill her. She prefers being nice and warm.

It’s always seemed a bit of a fucked up irony that vampires have such sensitivity to the sun, but warmth is about the greatest feeling next to feeding. Serana knows she has it better than most—the sun doesn’t burn her skin, it doesn’t weaken her, she’s not even all that more susceptible to fire than any regular human would be. But the _light_ of the sun was a different story. If it could just be warm without the sun’s brightness, she would be perfectly content.

As it is, she has the worst of both worlds. It’s freezing cold, _and_ the sun is bright as hell. Her eyes start to tire in just minutes from staring around at the snow, its blinding whiteness feeling like it might burn her retinas to nothing if she looks long enough. Every so often she turns her eyes to the stables, where there is no snow beneath the roofing, and the ground is blissfully dark beneath the shadows. She allows her eyes to rest for a while, and then she will turn back to staring at the temple doors, waiting for Eres to emerge.

Every so often she looks up towards the sun, against her better judgment.

An hour passes. Eres has not come out. The warmth Serana had felt from Eres’ hands has long since faded from her own. She misses it, now that her fingers are stiff and half-frozen. She flexes them periodically, trying to keep them from locking up with the cold. She rolls her ankles, shifts in place, paces a while until she realizes it’s making the horses antsy.

She stops, and waits longer.

She wants to go in.

Or, she _would_ want to go in, if it weren’t a temple. If even looking at it didn’t send her stomach sinking and what felt like phantom bile rising in her throat. She’s not been able to so much as look at a temple without feeling ill since—well. Since _her_ experience in Coldharbour.

There’s a part of her, the dark part she doesn’t like to give the time of day, that wonders if Eres had seen the same temple Serana had been—turned in. Had Eres visited that temple? Had she known what had happened there? That was ridiculous, of course—Serana had told her next to nothing of the experience, and she doesn’t plan to any time in the future. She doesn’t want to relive those memories any more than she wants to speak of them. But Eres _had_ been in Coldharbour, and there was a chance she had walked the same halls that Serana had, once, all those millennia ago…

Serana shakes her head, willing those dark thoughts to the back of her mind. She doesn’t want to think about that. Being outside of a temple makes it a bit more difficult than usual to ignore it, to push it down, to pretend it never happened, but. But this is the last time Eres will ever be here, and that means it is the last time Serana will ever be here, and she takes comfort in that.

Once Eres is done in there, they will be free. Eres will be free, and Serana with her, and well, who knew what would come after that?

What would they even _do?_ There are plenty of places Serana hasn’t seen yet in Skyrim, let alone all of Tamriel. Would Eres want to take a trip somewhere, maybe? Serana imagines she’d like to go to Valenwood at some point, but that would mean bringing her mother along, probably, and Serana wants—well, she doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want Inigo around, either.

She wants… She wants just her and Eres, somewhere. Like—somewhere warm, maybe. Like Hammerfell, perhaps, or Elswyr. Probably not Elswyr—that would probably mean Inigo would want to come along, and the point was to get rid of him. Serana can’t imagine that Eres would want to go back to the Empire, though she does admit she’s curious where Eres grew up, exactly. Would her childhood home still be there? Would it be the same as when Eres had grown up? Could she step into that house, and see just a bit of what Eres’ younger years might have been like, before she’d come to Skyrim?

But, if Eres is _here_ , Serana doubts she still owns the home in the Empire. So probably not, even if Serana is curious about it. Perhaps they might even travel as far as the Summerset Isles. They’re not particularly friendly, there, but it was the kind of place that people didn’t often get to see. They could share that experience together, just the two of them. And maybe make a bit of trouble along the way.

That is, if Eres would want to leave, anyways. Eres _is_ fairly attached to Fellburg, but Serana can’t see her staying there year-round. Maybe she could convince her to take a bit of a vacation, just for the two of them to get away somewhere together…

The door opens. Serana turns eagerly, but it is not Eres—merely a few Vigilants exiting the building, muttering amongst themselves. Serana, sighing, leans back against the walls.

Half an hour later, the door opens again, and this time it _is_ Eres, her Eres. Eres, who glances in her direction when she exits, finding Serana immediately, and meets her eyes briefly before turning away, walking toward the carriage and the little Khajiit attending to it.

Eres is, as always, immaculate. Serana thinks she might be the only person in the world to ever manage to look _good_ in the robes of a Vigilant. Which, Serana thinks with some satisfaction, Eres won’t be wearing for much longer. Aside from when Eres had been indisposed, she had always worn those shoddy things. What might she look like in something that suited her better?

Eres speaks to the carriage driver, pulling her cloak tight around her form in the blistering wind. The Khajiit shakes his head, refusing her coin when she offers it to him, but he smiles winningly at her all the same. There is a bit of back and forth, and then Eres is nodding her agreement, and the Khajiit climbs into the driver’s bench of the carriage to wait for his charge.

The doors to the temple open again, and are held open by a young blonde woman and an older man, while two other men carry a heavy trunk toward the carriage. Eres, seeing this, looks satisfied, and then, at _last_ , she is heading in Serana’s direction.

Serana does not meet her halfway, if only because she doesn’t want to seem—too eager, maybe. Too ready to jump at Eres’ every beck and call. Which she kind of is, but no one but her needs to know that. Especially not Eres. Yet. Maybe. Maybe someday.

“Hey,” Serana says to her, when she is within hearing distance over the wind. “I didn’t know you had so much stuff here.”

“Oh,” Eres shakes her head. She huffs a bit, brushing a bit of snow from her hair. Serana blinks, and for a moment she sees Eres the way she had been on the shore of her home not so long ago, the moment where Serana had thought, _maybe now._ She hadn’t done it then. Serana doesn’t do it now, either, but she does think about it. Perhaps a bit too much. Eres doesn’t seem to notice where her gaze had drifted, at least. “It’s not mine.”

Serana raises a brow. “Somebody else moving out?”

“Something like that.” Eres shrugs. “Gwyneth is moving to Fellburg.”

Serana’s brows meet, and she glances sharply at the young blonde woman by the door. Her eyes narrow. “That’s her?”

“It is.” Serana turns her eyes back to Eres to find her _much_ closer than she had been before. Eres looks up at her, amusement plain on her features. “She’s a friend of mine, Serana,” she says, her tone exceedingly patient and just _slightly_ tinged with mirth.

Serana can’t hold her gaze when she’s looking at her all—all knowingly, like that. “I didn’t say anything.” She realizes how that sounds, and quickly works to amend it, “I mean, I could’ve guessed as much.” She hears Eres chuckle, and she knows she’s done a terrible job at hiding her reaction.

“I told you, she was the only other person to survive Altano,” Eres tells her. “She doesn’t feel comfortable staying here alone now that I’m leaving. I offered her a place at Fellburg as a tutor.”

“I think you have plenty as it is.”

Eres shrugs. “There’s no such thing as too much education.”

At that, Serana holds back a snort. Eres could be so—unexpectedly scholarly, sometimes. Sometimes, Serana forgets that Eres had been tutored formally, with a proper noble’s education—or as much of it as she could get under her father’s means. Eres spends so much of her time being very much _un-_ noblelike that it’s easy to forget it.

“Whatever you say,” Serana drawls.

Eres’ eyes flash at her. “Like you have room to talk,” she mutters, clearly able to tell exactly what Serana had been thinking regardless of whether she says it aloud or not. “You’ve read just about every book in the world.”

“Over millennia,” Serana reminds her.

“You were asleep for most of those. You can’t use that as an excuse for being a bookworm.” The look Eres gives her almost screams of a challenge there, somewhere, but Serana dutifully sidesteps it.

She isn’t sure she’s ready for that much of a dance yet. Not in the cold. Not when she feels like her mind is running about half as fast as normal.

“Are you ready to go, then? Chosen your successor?”

Eres shrugs again. “I didn’t choose anyone,” she says lightly, “I’m leaving it to them to figure it out. Not my problem anymore.” Serana smirks at that. She does love when Eres doesn’t give a shit about expectations. “I’ve already told M’que where to go, so we’re good to go if you—”

The oddest thing happens, then, mid-sentence.

Eres blinks, her brow furrowing. She turns her head, her gaze somewhat distant. Serana, frowning, tries to listen more closely herself, wondering what Eres has heard. If Eres has heard it, then so should she—but she hears nothing of the sort. Nothing but the wind, and the chatter of M’que the Khajiit and the Vigilants as they load the carriage. She hears nothing at all.

But when she looks back at Eres, the girl still has that strange, faraway look in her eyes, a frown pulling at her lips.

“Eres?”

Eres turns away from her, looking around them. After another long, tense moment, she says, “Something’s not right.”

Serana frowns as Eres turns back to her. Eres looks—troubled. Not just bothered, but _deeply_ troubled. Worried about something. Though she glances at Serana, she keeps turning away from her, that distant look to her eyes, seeming to search the courtyard and somewhere beyond it for something Serana can’t see or hear.

“Eres,” Serana calls to her, and she clasps a hand around Eres’ arm, drawing her closer, hoping to ground her. Eres keeps turning in place, looking around herself, but she stops when Serana grasps at her, standing still at last—but her head continues to turn, her eyes continuing to search. “Hey.”

Eres glances up at her. Her frown deepens. “Serana, something’s not right.”

“You said that,” Serana reminds her. “What is it? Are you sure it’s not… a side effect?” She asks, cautious. “It could be something leftover from the mantling—”

“It’s not that.” Eres sounds certain, but Serana isn’t. “There’s—” Eres turns away again. Serana can feel the tension in her, how stiffly she moves, how on edge she is. “There’s something _wrong_.”

“Maybe it’s just,” Serana tries to think of something to explain it, and cannot. “I don’t know. What does it feel like?”

“It feels like—” Eres’ brow furrows. “I know what you’re going to say,” she starts, “but it feels like when—when I had to do something in Coldharbour. But it’s not the same, Serana. It’s not—” she shakes her head, and she only looks more troubled by the minute. “It feels like there’s somewhere I need to be.”

“It could be a flashback of some kind, maybe,” Serana offers, uncertain. “I’ve read about that—sometimes when people go through something traumatic, they can just relive the same feelings at random—”

“It’s not that!” Eres snaps at her, eyes flashing with sudden irritation. Serana blinks at her, and Eres’ flare of anger fades. “I’m sorry,” she says quickly, “but it’s not that, it’s—”

There is something to be said of watching realization come over one’s face. It is somehow worse when that realization is mingled with fear.

“It’s Fellburg,” Eres says suddenly. She is already moving for the horses before Serana has a chance to respond.

“It’s what? Eres—”

“No time!” Eres swings onto her horse and kicks it into a gallop before Serana has even mounted her own. Eres thunders out of the temple courtyard ahead of her, into the Stuhn Ravine, and Serana sends her own horse into a gallop after her, cursing—it would be so much easier to catch up with her on foot, but the cold has made her slower than usual, and she wouldn’t be able to hold pace as easily.

Distantly, Serana hears Inigo’s shouted complaint of them leaving him behind—and the sound of distant hoofbeats in the snow behind them. Inigo will catch up. Serana needs to be with Eres. She needs to know what the hell is going on.

Eres runs her horse so hard that Serana worries the poor thing is going to collapse. Her own is not doing much better, and Inigo’s also looks worse for wear, though he seems much better at not riding the mouth too hard. Eres has not spoken once in the many hours since they’ve left the temple behind and has led them far to the south, down through the pass into Whiterun Hold, and Serana _still_ does not know what Eres has sensed.

She does not know it until they reach Whitewatch Tower, and Eres leaps from her horse without slowing down and she is sprinting for one of the guard towers and the men are shouting their alarms and warning her to back off—Serana curses, swinging from her own saddle, prepared to protect her, but Eres just tosses down her gear—her sword, her bow, her quiver, even her dagger, insisting to be let up into the guard tower while the guard block her path.

They seem more baffled by her than anything, and Inigo rushes to tell the guard that they are friendly.

Serana makes quick work of assuming the glamor that will allow her to masquerade as human, and then she is at Eres’ side, trying to draw her away from the increasingly agitated guards, but Eres will not hear of it.

“Just _let me up there!_ _”_ Eres grabs at one of the men, and Serana swears as several more draw their blades. Eres is going to get herself _killed_ at this rate.

Then Eres forcibly turns the guard around and thrusts a finger to the southwest, past Whiterun, past the mountain range and—

And Serana sees it, now. She sees what Eres had seen all the way back at the Temple of Stendarr, nestled in the mountains near Dawnstar miles and miles away, too far for anyone to have seen it. She sees, now, what Eres must have been sensing, somehow, all the way back there, what had sent her barrelling out of the temple courtyard into the night, why she had been so desperate to reach Fellburg that she had run the horses to near exhaustion.

Just over the crest of the mountain range to the southwest, Serana sees it.

Black smoke, curling upwards into the sky above in great, dark plumes so thick that they seem almost to form full clouds in the sky before they begin to dissipate.

“That’s my _home!_ _”_ Eres shouts at the guard. “Just let me up there so I can see what’s happened!”

“Oh, Shor’s _stones_ ,” one of the men breathe, and several utter curses of their own, murmuring about dragons amongst themselves. Eres does not wait for an answer. She spins, and hauls herself up the ladder two, three rungs at a time until she is at the top, leaning over the railing to peer into the distance. Serana watches her, watches as several of the guard run off toward the city—watches as one of them climbs an even higher tower and begins the solemn ring of a warning bell—a bell warning of attack.

Somewhere in the distance, to the west, Serana hears the sound of a bell ringing in answer, and then another, and another, until it seems as if the entire valley is alive with the ringing of bells around them.

Eres comes down the ladder so fast Serana fears she might drop right off it, but then she is in front of her, grasping Serana by the front of her armor, eyes bright with fear.

“Serana, it’s Fellburg,” Eres tells her. “You have to get to them! You have to _run!_ ”

“Eres—”

“ _Please_ ,” Eres looks up at her, and Serana could not have said no if her life had depended on it. “Go to them. Save as many people as you can, _please._ ”

She doesn’t want to leave her. She doesn’t want to leave Eres now, not now of all times, not when Eres had somehow _sensed_ this, not when there are so many things about this Serana doesn’t know and doesn’t understand and _needs_ to understand, not when Serana fears that the mantling might not yet be over, not when she worries that Eres might not be in her right mind, not when Eres begs her—but she cannot say no. She can’t. Eres wouldn’t allow her to. She knows that.

“…Okay,” is all that Serana can bring herself to say, nodding numbly. She will go. She will go because Eres has asked her to, and she can do nothing else. How could she refuse? Those are people Eres loves back there. She has just gotten her mother back, and now—now she might lose her all over again. Serana cannot allow that to happen. Eres complains, but Serana knows that she wants her around. Just as Eres loves the others, like Yosef and Johanna—and Serana’s own mother is there, too, somewhere, and Isran. There are too many important people in Fellburg, in _danger_ , for Serana to say no.

Eres’ eyes close with visible relief, for just a second. When she looks up at Serana again, the pleading in her eyes has turned to hard determination.

There, Serana thinks. There is the girl she loves.

“Go, Serana,” Eres tells her fiercely. “I’ll meet you there.” And then, Eres says, hardly more than a breath in Serana’s ear, “ _Thank you_ ,” and she rocks up on her toes and Serana feels lips on her cheek and then Eres is running away from her, back to her horse, and Serana is left standing there stupidly, processing.

Lips. Eres’ lips. On her cheek. She’d kissed her. She’d _kissed her_.

Serana shakes her head, forcing herself to focus. _Not now._ Now isn’t the time. She has to run. She has to go. She is not going to be waylaid by a damned kiss. She’s—she’s better than that. She is.

Serana turns on a heel, and sprints away at full speed, leaving her horse behind in the dust. It will take her mere minutes to reach Fellburg instead of hours. She is the only one of them who can reach it quickly enough that she might still be able to help. She knows this, and still she worries—still, she cannot help but fear for Eres.

How had she known? How had she seen this coming? Was it a dragon? Had she been able to sense the dragon as it attacked, somehow? Or, had she somehow sensed the damage that would be done to Fellburg long before it had even happened? How exactly had Eres _known_ the way she had?

Serana is afraid of the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a wild plot appears! 
> 
> also they cute


	8. Consequence

In the end, by the time that Serana arrives at Fellburg, there is little she can do at all. She stops just at the edge of the village or—what had once been a village, that was now little more than rubble and smoking embers. Soot and ash lingered in the air around her, the ground painted near-black with it, and the smell of the smoke in the air is one she is growing all too familiar with.

Dragonfire.

Serana moves, almost without thought, to the first person she sees who looks as though they could use help—a woman, trying desperately to wrangle two frantic children. Serana helps her to control them, much as she dislikes children herself (perhaps _dislike_ is too strong a word, but she is certainly not comfortable with them). The woman smiles gratefully at her, but Serana can hardly return it. Eres is going to be _devastated_.

More than half the small village had burned down entirely, and what remains is precariously unstable. Several guards gather at the base of a guard tower, as it leans dangerously to one side, near to collapsing right through an adjacent roof that is already only barely functional. They do not seem to be attempting to save it, rather, they shout and yell, heads swiveling on their shoulders, looking for a place where they might guide the tower to fall where it might do the least amount of damage. Serana is not even entirely sure if such an effort is worth the struggle - there is little left they can save.

In the bailey, where the guards normally gathered in the mornings, Auria and the housemaidens that could be spared had spread cloth over the soot-covered ground for the villagers to rest on. Auria and Mirabelle themselves are at opposite ends of that gathering of pathetic looking men and women, healing with gentle hands glowing with a soft green light. Valerica lingers nearby, handing off vials of alchemical mixtures as handmaidens approach in a neatly organized line - there is a quick exchange, an explanation as Valerica nods thoughtfully, and then Valerica hands the handmaiden some mixture of medicines with instruction, and the handmaiden is off to return to the gathering of injured nearby to administer what treatments can be done for those who do not need magical healing. In short time, it seems, they had developed a system to ensure that all were given the care they needed, and whatever nerves may have lingered around Valerica’s nature seemed to have evaporated in the wake of the disaster that had befallen them all.

Help is help, vampire or no.

Serana moves with purpose to the first group who need assistance - the guards, because between her mother and Auria and Mirabelle, she’s certain she might only get in the way. Her vampiric strength, however, is welcome when she helps to take so much of the weight from the men’s shoulders as they work to find an acceptable place to guide the tower’s collapse. Isran joins her wordlessly, at some point, but they do not speak, even after they have finished with the tower and moved on to other things in danger of collapse or causing further injuries.

Her speed had made it so that she could reach Fellburg more quickly, had made it so that she could help where they needed it most. Another helping hand would never be turned away, in times like these, and Serana does not have even a blink of rest in the hours it takes from her arrival to feel like she has a moment to breathe, when Mirabelle calls upon several favors to borrow a group of student mages from the college to help put the last of the fires out, restoration mages to look over the most severely injured. The downside to that speed, of course, is that she has nothing to do but _wait_.

Wait, until Eres arrives. Her mind calculates the time between here and the watchtower she had left her at, the speed of a well-bred horse. At a normal pace, such a ride might take half a day, perhaps a bit less if the roads were clear, or Eres took a shortcut through the forest in the valley. Knowing Eres—knowing what they had all seen at the watch tower, Eres would be coming at a breakneck pace, as quickly as she could, running the horse into the ground—likely shaving that time easily in half, if not less. Eres knew her way around Skyrim better than anyone Serana could name.

The first few hours, when there is nothing but work to be done, pass quickly. Serana has little time to even think of how long it has been for how busy she is. As the night rolls ever onward, the sky darkening and the moon rising high into the black sky above them, the activity begins to wane as the humans’ last dredges of adrenaline begin to wane, leaving even the sturdiest of them with a bone-deep exhaustion that drains their faces of color, that saps their muscles of any strength that remains. One by one, the humans collapse to rest, filthy and soot-blackened and some not even bothering to find a cloth to lay upon. Several guards simply drop where they stand, sagging to the ground as though thankful for its existence until they cradle their heads upon their arms - and then, they are asleep, almost as quickly as they had become horizontal. Serana sees more than one doze off standing up, sitting propped up against debris, anywhere they can find a moment to rest—they blink, and they are gone.

The healers Mirabelle brought in from the College do not stop. Indeed, Serana sees the way they slowly take over for those handmaidens who had been caring for the injured all day, some of them so gently and gradually that Serana sees several handmaidens start suddenly where they kneel beside a patient, seemingly stunned to find that they are empty-handed and without responsibility. Other College mages are not quite so subtle, instead ordering people to dark corners or cloth mats until they no longer argue - and then only the mages remain, caring for each with a level of order and professionalism that could only come from those trained in the Restoration artes.

Auria, sapped of all energy by midnight, joins the group of handmaidens who have all but collapsed into a heap in one corner of the bailey, too exhausted to care where they might sleep tonight - and with whom.

Two hours later, Eres arrives. And everything _shifts_. Or—perhaps it’s just Serana, feeling like _something_ should have changed, that something in the universe should have somehow preceded her arrival, that there was something monumental about this, about this moment in time in particular. About seeing Eres dismount in one fluid motion without even slowing the horse at all, how she makes a beeline right for her—how dark her eyes look in this light, how sharp—and yet somehow brittle, like the illusion of strength that hides a crippling weakness. Like Serana can see that weakness within her, like she can sense it, like she knows it as well as the back of her hand.

But not now, Eres’ eyes say, as they often do for so many things. Not now. Not here. (If not now, then when? If not here, then where?) If there is anything in the world that Eres can do, it is file things away for later. Later, when things calm down. Later, when things are easier. Later, when she is not Eres and doesn’t have the weight of the world on her shoulders, maybe.

“What happened?” Eres demands of her, even from several paces away. “Who was it?!”

“Who?” Serana echoes, and shakes her head. “I think the better question is _what._ _”_

 _“No,”_ Eres’ eyes flash, heated with anger, with hatred, with promise. “I know it was a dragon,” she says, her tone clipped and short. “I want to know _which_ dragon it was, so I know which one I need to kill.”

“Maybe you ought to have thought of that _before_ ,” Yosef’s voice comes, from somewhere behind Eres. Serana’s jaw tightens, feeling anger bubble up beneath her skin at the accusatory tone of his voice, at the hard anger in his gaze. “Before we got attacked by a dragon, perhaps. Before he came here looking for _you_.”

Eres’ brow meets. Confusion, a reaction that Serana herself echoes. “Before _who_ came here looking for me?”

“A dragon,” Yosef sneers. “Sent by _Alduin_.” His mouth twists, his eyes flashing hot with something vile and angry and so very unlike him that Serana feels sick—but he blinks, and the look is gone. He shakes his head, raising both hands to his face to press against his eyes, to drag down his cheeks as he lets out a long, steadying sigh. When he opens his eyes again, he looks calmer, more stable, more—more _Yosef_ , and less the hateful man he’d seemed just seconds ago. “Were you ever going to tell us, Eres?” He asks, then, and instead of anger, there is something like defeat in his voice. Something like resignation. “Did you not think we ought to know? That you could trust us with it? Why didn’t you _tell us_ you were the Dragonborn?”

Eres’ lips press into a thin line, in the way they do when she’s encountered something she deeply dislikes. In the way they do when Eres is keeping herself from saying something she might regret. Wordlessly, Serana steps closer to her, presses a hand against the small of her back, a silent, _I_ _’m here_. A silent expression of her unwavering support, no matter what may come.

“Would you have believed me if I had?” Eres asks him instead, expression unreadable.

There is a moment where it seems that Yosef might argue it, a moment in which he looks almost offended by the insinuation that he would not have trusted her, would not have taken her at her word—but Serana sees the moment the realization comes over him, sees the flicker of his gaze over her face, sees the traces of guilt and doubt in his eyes. “I—” he says, and swallows. “I might have,” he says, after a long moment. “You can do the Shouting thing, can’t you? Like a Dragonborn can?” he says. “You could have proved it to us, even if we didn’t believe you at first—”

Eres shakes her head. “It wasn’t important—”

“ _Important?_ _”_ Yosef scoffs, shaking his head, and he throws his arm out to one side in a wide, sweeping gesture. “ _This_ doesn’t look important to you? He came here looking for _you_ , Eres! He _told us_ he wanted you! That he’d _hoped_ you’d be here, because _Alduin_ would have been pleased with him if he’d killed you. He burned—he destroyed this place, and he did it all just to get at you. You don’t think that’s _important_?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Eres says, her voice dangerously low. Serana hears the hurt beneath it, hears the pain in it that Eres covers with cold anger.

“Well, what _did_ you mean? How could you being the _fucking Dragonborn_ not have been important? You know Neil almost—” Yosef swallows, blinks rapidly, his eyes shining. It takes him a moment to recover. “He almost got crushed, you know,” he says slowly, softly. “By the wall when it came down. I—I could’ve…” He shakes his head, as though he doesn’t wish to even think of the possibility. “I could’ve lost my _son_ to this—to this _thing_ you didn’t think was worth even telling us about.”

“And what difference would it have made, Yosef?” The anger snaps out of Eres’ mouth like a whip, the defensiveness, the kneejerk reaction the accusation beneath his words. “What difference would you knowing have made here? Would your knowledge of me as Dragonborn have magically protected you against him? Would you have stood outside and said, _no, wait, I **know** she_ _’s Dragonborn, you can leave now_?” Yosef’s lips turned downward into a frown. “Whether you knew or not, the result would have been the same.”

“We could have prepared better if we’d known you’d be a target—”

“Prepared _how,_ Yosef? You’re a _farmer._ What would you do, _till_ him to death?” Yosef reels back, as if slapped, and even Serana winces.

“Eres, that’s enough,” she says, if only because she doesn’t want this to explode into something more vitriolic between them. She’s not entirely happy with Yosef’s tone, herself, but she knows how important he is to Eres, and she knows how upset Eres would be if Yosef began to resent her—and Eres, snapping at him in such a way, is only going to make things worse. “Everyone is—spread thin, right now. Why don’t we all take the night and talk about this in the morning, once everyone’s gotten some sleep.”

But Eres glares at Yosef, like she might say more, and Serana tugs her away bodily. “Eres,” she says warningly, pulling her close enough against her that she can murmur low into her ear, where Yosef won’t hear her. “Don’t say anything you’re going to regret in the morning.”

Eres tugs away from her, still scowling, but she gives Yosef one last heated glance before she spins on her heel and marches briskly towards the other side of the bailey, where Auria and Mirabelle have set up the makeshift, open-air infirmary for the night.

In her wake, Serana turns to Yosef, disappointed beyond words. “That wasn’t fair,” she says to him, her voice quiet and stern. “And you know it wasn’t.” His jaw works, his eyes averting from her own. “If you want someone to pin the blame on, there’s an entire dragon out there with a bullseye on its back. You know as well as I do that Eres is already beating herself up enough without you making her feel guilty for existing.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing—”

“You blamed her,” Serana frowns at him, because he knows that she knows he’s not stupid. He’d known what he was doing. “The first thing you did was pin the blame on her for this. She’s done nothing but help you, Yosef. You and your family. I don’t know why you’d want to throw that in her face over one mistake.”

“That one mistake could have killed my son.”

“Could have,” Serana says, going against what she wants to say - that it doesn’t matter if it had or hadn’t, it still wouldn’t have been her fault. But Yosef is emotional, and protective, and a father, and so she knows he won’t listen to such cold logic, at least not right now. Not when he’s already incensed, too. “It didn’t. So stop acting like she killed him herself and think about how much shit she has to deal with. I don’t see you volunteering to go save the world after walking into Oblivion.”

Yosef’s mouth shuts with an audible click. There is a brief moment where she can see his stubbornness, where she can see how much he wants to argue, how much he wants to stay angry, how much he wants to feel as though he is right. But then, as before, it fades, and in its place, there is just the slightest hint of guilt. Of sheepishness. Of understanding.

“I—” Yosef’s eyes flicker past her shoulder, across the yard. Serana doesn’t have to look to know he’s looking for Eres.

“Not now,” Serana tells him, not unkindly. “She’s upset. She’s not going to want to hear it right now. In the morning, we’ll talk about this. For now, just—” Serana takes a breath, and sighs, thinking of how much work there is still to be done. Thinking of how much she will have to draw Eres out of her walls again. “Just leave her be, for now. I’ll take care of her.”

Slowly, Yosef nods. “In the morning, then,” he says quietly.

“In the morning,” Serana agrees, and she turns to find Eres. Eres will need her, tonight. She is sure of that.

Eres does not sleep, that night, as one might have expected. She spends much of the hours until dawn coordinating with the few guards and staff who yet remain conscious and have not collapsed from exhaustion on how they might move forward from here. Eres pretends that she does not notice the way they look at her, with a veiled suspicion behind their tiredness, with distrust and doubt—she has never been particularly close to any of them, really, but they had at least once regarded her with respect fit to her station. Now, it is a wonder they don’t openly deride her, though she can read it on their faces.

Yosef, it seems, is not the only one who blames her.

She blames herself just as much as they do, if not more so.

How long ago had she discovered that she was Dragonborn? It had been months since her and Serana’s journey through the Forgotten Vale in search of Auriel’s Bow. Months since that fateful encounter on the frozen lake, since she’d seen with her own eyes that dragons had indeed returned to Skyrim. Since she’d discovered the power of the bloodline coursing through her. She’d even answered the Greybeard’s summons, listened to their spiels about fate and destiny and her responsibility as Dragonborn - and she had ignored them. She had ignored their warnings, too wrapped up in her own problems to worry about the prophesied fate they had spoken of.

And now look where that had led her.

That dragon, whoever he was, had come looking for _her_. He had somehow known who she was, that she was Dragonborn, had known where to find her, what she held dear. And if what Yosef had said was true, he had been directed there by Alduin himself, hoping to gain his favor by bringing an end to Eres herself before she could become a problem. And Fellburg had been caught in the crossfire. Fellburg had paid the price for her hubris. For her carelessness.

This was her fault. _Hers_. Ignoring fate, it seemed, had a way of punishing one who did not respect its power. One would think, after all she’s been through, that she’d have learned not to tempt it. She’s experienced more than her fair share of letdowns and setbacks, but this—she had never expected _this_.

Much of the Keep proper is still remarkably intact, of course, it being made of stone as it is and having likely endured far worse in the past than a singular dragon attack. The tower she’d kept her magical items within, the very same one Yosef and his family had once hidden in, had suffered a collapse of its roof inward, reportedly from the dragon deciding to use it as a perch. It was that self same tower that Yosef and his family had been in when the dragon was spotted, trying to find a way to contact her, and very nearly paying the ultimate price.

When the roof had collapsed, it had been only Yosef’s quick reflexes that had saved his son from being crushed beneath the rubble. Eres cannot even blame him for resenting her, in this moment. She resents herself just as much, if not more so. If it hadn’t been for her, and her ignoring her calling for so long, none of this would have happened. Neil would never have been in danger. It was _her fault_.

The Keep, however, is about the only thing in the village that has escaped major damages. Both guard towers collapsed - one during the attack, set aflame by the dragon, and the second had leaned so precariously afterward that she’d spotted the guard - and Serana - working to ensure it didn’t tip over onto some unfortunate soul wandering beneath it. As it were, they’d let the tower collapse into the wooden walls that had once surrounded the bailey, now thoroughly decimated by fire, rubble, and debris. How long ago was it that she’d considered putting up new walls made of stone? Why hadn’t she done it _then_?

Why had she wasted so much _time?_

“Eres.”

Eres looks up. Serana stands there, in the doorway, looking as she always does. She doesn’t look angry, or upset, or disappointed - expressions Eres has gotten unfortunately quite accustomed to, now, in the aftermath of Fellburg’s destruction. If anything, she looks kind, warm—worried. About her. About the one who’d caused all of this.

Eres looks away from her. “What is it?” She asks, and the detached, business-like tone of her own voice surprises even her. Perhaps she’s a better liar than she thinks.

“We should talk.” Eres raises a brow, glancing at her. Serana frowns back at her, hands braced at her hips, looking at her like she expects Eres to tuck tail and run in the opposite direction as soon as she’s got the chance. The idea is tempting, Eres will admit, but she’s still got just a tad bit too much dignity to turn running from an uncomfortable conversation, even one she can sense coming. “About you, I meant,” Serana clarifies. “Not—” she shakes her head, sighing. Eres hears it anyways: _Not us_. _Not whatever this is between us._ “Let me in.”

Eres’ brow furrows. She looks very pointedly at where Serana stands. “The door’s already open.”

Serana actually glares at her, shortly, though the look is gone almost as soon as it had come. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

 _Did I?_ Eres considers asking, and then comes to the conclusion that Serana doesn’t seem like she’d take the comment well, in the moment. “I’m not actually sure what you mean,” she says instead, keeping her tone carefully level. These are unknown waters she’s treading in, and she’s not keen on saying the wrong thing and having yet something else to worry about on top of, well, the _world_ , seemingly.

Serana averts her gaze a moment, looking anywhere but at her as she comes further into the room, as she takes a seat gingerly in the lounge chair beside Eres’ desk. If Eres reaches out, she could touch her from where she stands just in front of it, halfway through the process of tearing her notes and journals apart for anything that might relate to Alduin and the prophecy the Greybeards has spoken of. Standing there with a sheaf of parchments in hand and her desktop cluttered with what seems like hundreds more, while Serana leans so casually back in that seat and stares up at her, Eres feels woefully unprepared. Somehow, it seems like the state of her desk is as much as a representation of the clutter of her mind. And then there’s Serana, perfectly presentable. Perfectly organized. Perfectly perfect.

“You’re doing that thing you do,” Serana says, incomprehensibly.

Eres stares at her a moment, a mix of both baffled and too tired and preoccupied to care. “That _thing_ I do?” She asks, and looks back at the mess she’s made. She hardly even remembers what she was looking for in the first place. She’d come in here for a reason, she’s sure of it. She’d made this mess for a reason. There had to be one. She just can’t quite remember it when Serana is looking at her like that, like she’s waiting for something. Something that Eres isn’t aware of. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“Pretending like everything is fine when it isn’t,” Serana says bluntly. Eres, very carefully, does not look at her. She doesn’t have to, really—Serana is right and she knows this. She also knows that Serana knows she’s right. “Pushing everything back to deal with later, and then never actually doing it.” A pause. Out of the corner of her eye, Eres sees her frown deepen. “Shutting me out.”

Eres does look up then, frowning back at her. “I’m not shutting you out.” She hasn’t exactly spent a lot of time with Serana since she’d arrived, but could she be blamed? She’s just been busy. She hasn’t been avoiding her on purpose.

At that, Serana raises a brow. “We haven’t so much as spoken two words to each other since I left you at the watchtower. That was nearly two days ago.”

Eres’ brow creases, mouth parting to argue—but she stops, and her lips press together, and her frown deepens. “Has it been two days?” She wonders aloud, trying to rack her brain - it can’t have been that long. She can’t remember sleeping twice since—well. Perhaps her sleeping patterns aren’t the best metric to use to track the passage of time.

“Just about.”

“Huh,” Eres says, a bit unsettled. She’s wasting _time_. She has to get her things together and leave for High Hrothgar as soon as possible, but there’s just so much for her to do before she can leave… “I didn’t realize.”

A moment of silence stretches between them, too long and too uncomfortable for Eres’ liking. She busies herself with the things on her desk, if only to have some way to distract herself from Serana’s ever-watchful gaze.

“Are you going to talk to me, now, or keep ignoring me?”

“I’m not ignoring you.” It comes out as hardly more than a mumble, convincing no one. Certainly not Serana. There is a sound not unlike a scoff from Serana’s direction, and then the room spins.

Before Eres can do anything to combat it, Serana has pulled her, spun her until she is sitting in the other woman’s lap, Serana’s arms wrapped around her middle and trapping her in place. She is too preoccupied, in that moment, to even feel the usual thrill that runs through her when Serana touches her—in that moment, all she feels is irritation, trying to sit up straight and pull her arms out of Serana’s vice-like grip.

“Stop.” Serana commands her, voice firm, but gentle all at once. “Just for a moment, Eres. Stop.”

“I have things to do—” and Eres tries to pull herself away, but of course Serana is far too strong for her to clamber out of her embrace so easily. With an annoyed huff, Eres settles back against her, glaring at the opposite wall. “When are you going to let me go?”

“When you stop being an idiot.” Eres turns her head to scowl at her. Serana merely quirks a brow in response. “All I’m asking is for you to stop, Eres. Let yourself actually _feel_ this, for once. Process it. You need to.”

Eres sighs, turning away. She can do nothing about Serana’s arms around her—Serana had been smart enough to wrap her arms around Eres’ to keep her from being able to move more freely, to keep her from wriggling her way out. If she fought it, Eres thinks, Serana wouldn’t _really_ trap her there forever. She means well. Eres knows that. She also knows that she doesn’t really want to get up, as much as she does have far too much to prepare to spend time sitting around in Serana’s lap. As pleasant as it might be.

“I don’t have time for that,” Eres says at last, sinking back into her arms. She lets her head fall back against Serana’s shoulder, feeling an exhaustion deep in her bones that makes her entire body feel like its made of lead rather than flesh. Inside, she feels her heart sink, low into her chest. “There’s never enough time.”

How she wishes she could go back. How she wishes this world was a bit like Coldharbour, in that way, that she could just hunt through her memories and change the decisions she’s made until now, that she could change the present for the better. That she could go back and do whatever it takes to save Fellburg from this fate. That she could do anything, really, to change where she is today.

But this is not Coldharbour, and she does not have the power of a God on her side. She cannot turn back time, or change the past. She has to live with the consequences of her decisions, now, and she has no idea if she _can_.

“I know,” Serana murmurs, a soft whisper of a breath against her ear. Her arms tighten around Eres, just a little, not for the sake of restraining her this time but for comfort, instead. For reassurance. “I know, Eres. But I’m here for you. And I always will be.”

Eres turns into her, wraps her arms around Serana’s shoulders. She breathes deep of her scent, of everything about her. She settles into Serana’s embrace, closing her eyes, and just for a little while, it feels like the world isn’t waiting for her to save it. It feels like she has just a little bit of time. Just a little. Just for her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did consider originally putting this and the next act together, but in the end the next act is going to be long enough without adding this into it as well, and it provided a nice bridge between the first half of the series and the second half, I think.   
> I'm going to be uploading the beginning of Act 7 in a bit as well for a bit of a double feature since this act ends on such a sort of bitter note.


End file.
